Smart Goal Setting with Bree Pair

Subscribe: RSS

Smart Goal Setting. Bree Pair shows how to set purposeful and sustainable goals for the upcoming year so we no longer suffer extreme burnout.

It’s that time of year again – goal planners are filled up, our excitement for our businesses is at an all-time high, we’re rested from a nice break, and we can’t wait to jump into achieving all the things.

But, be honest with me, you know how this cycle ends right? With burnout and a lack of motivation and an urge to burn that beautiful little goal planner that you just spent the end of December slaving over perfecting.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I personally suffered an extreme case of burnout last fall. It was so severe that I ended up having to take WEEKS completely stepped back from my business. And I’ll get into it more in next week’s episode, but a large part of it came down to setting too many large and unrealistic goals for myself.

Which is why I’m SO excited to have today’s guest, my friend Bree, with – because she’s going to be sharing how we can set purposeful and sustainable goals for this upcoming year. So that none of us have to endure that extreme burnout in 2023.

Bree Pair is a blogging coach and founder of Thrive – A blogging community built to empower and educate bloggers to make a full-time income by spending time on the right things. Her passion is helping bloggers create a strategy for growth and working with them on every side of their business to give them the confidence they need to be successful. Bree is propelled by the results of seeing bloggers go from overwhelmed to steady and sustained growth and creating the lifestyle they want.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Let my Content Planner guide you with making sustainable yearly goals for your business
Are you looking to improve your content without spending a ton of time and mental energy doing so? Whether you’re looking for help knowing what to talk about, setting up content systems, or improving your launch strategy, the Chasing Simple Shop has something for you. From A Year of Content Prompts broken up by type of content, to my Launch Strategy Mini-Course – the Chasing Simple Shop is the quick and simple way to take your content to the next level. And you can get 10% off any item by using the code LISTENER at checkout! Just head to amandawarfield.com/shop/
Thrive Blogger Podcast
My Episode on the Thrive Blogger Podcast
Bree’s Instagram

Social Links:
https://instagram.com/thrivetogetherblog
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thrivebloggingcommunity
https://thrivetogether.blog/class

Did you love this episode?

Don’t forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Also, if you would be willing to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, it would mean the world to me. It’s such a small thing that can make a big difference in helping me spread this message of simplicity to other overwhelmed women.

Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic

Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!

*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate

It’s that time of year again, goal planners are filled up. Our excitement for our businesses is at an all time high. We’re rested from a nice break and we can’t wait to jump into achieving all the things. But be honest, you know how this cycle ends, right? With burnout and a lack of motivation and an urge to burn that beautiful little goal planner that you spent the end of December slaving over.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I personally suffered an extreme case of burnout last fall. It was so severe that I ended up having to take weeks completely step back for my business, and I’ll get into it more in next week’s episode. But a large part of it came down to setting too many large and unrealistic goals for myself.

Which is why I’m so excited to have today’s guest, my friend, Bree with us because she’s going to be sharing how we can set purposeful and sustainable goals for this upcoming year so that none of us have to endure that extreme burnout in 2023. Bree Pair is a blogging coach and founder of Thrive, a blogging community built to empower and educate bloggers to make a full-time income by spending time on the right things.

Her passion is helping bloggers create a strategy for growth and working with them on every side of their business to give them the confidence they need to be successful. Bree is propelled by the results of seeing bloggers go from overwhelm to study and sustain growth in creating the lifestyle that they want.

And with that, let’s go ahead and dive on into today’s interview.

[00:01:24] Amanda: Bri, thank you so much for being here. I have been looking forward to this interview for so long. I know we tried to make it work with my last interview batch week, and we couldn’t, and so I’m super pumped to have you here today. Go ahead and introduce yourself to anyone who might not know you yet.

[00:01:39] Bree: Yeah, same.

[00:01:40] Bree: Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m glad we were able to make this work. And I got in on your amazing batching schedule, . So hello. For anybody that doesn’t know me I’m Bree, I’m a coach for female bloggers and entrepreneurs. I’m also the host of the Thrive Blogger Podcast, so you guys can listen over there as well.

[00:02:01] Bree: And then other than that, yeah, I have a personal Instagram where I share a lot of real life. I talk about mental health and try to be a source where people can find joy and peace in the midst of social media chaos.

[00:02:15] Amanda: And also you’re just an all around great person to know, so everyone should definitely go check out her podcast and follow her on Instagram.

[00:02:21] Amanda: But I know that one of the things that you help your students and your clients do is get strategic not only with their goals, but also with their revenue streams. And I would love to hear you talk about the connection point between those two a little bit, because I think that’s something that. We can overlook, we can set goals that maybe are arbitrary or are unrealistic and that aren’t really connected with the revenue streams that we have or where we actually are in our business or where we’re trying to go.

[00:02:53] Amanda: So I would love to hear you teach on that a little bit.

[00:02:55] Bree: Absolutely. I would love to. It’s one of my favorite things to talk about and what you said. It’s absolutely true, and it’s, I think it’s because we, set down, whether it’s at the beginning of the year, beginning of the quarter, or we’re just like feeling inspired and feeling like, Hey, I need to get it together a little bit more.

[00:03:12] Bree: And so we start to just start write down goals of like, oh, I wanna hit this, or I wanna make this amount of money, or I wanna do this and I wanna do that. That’s all great. I’m all for like taking your inspiration and running with it. But the problem I see happen is that if we’re just doing that and we’re not analyzing where our money is coming from, analyzing what is currently working and really deep dive into where our time is going and how that translates to the income that’s actually hitting our bank account.

[00:03:49] Bree: Because at the end of the day, If we’re spending all of our time in setting these goals on these things that aren’t actually helping our bank account, Why are we doing it? I mean, , you know, we have our passion projects and we have these different things that fuel our why, and I understand that. But at the end of the day, we’re running a business, right?

[00:04:09] Bree: And so we need to be strategic about all of that. And so before we set goals, there’s just a few steps that I like to kind of run through as we’re doing them to make sure that we’re setting really smart goals.

[00:04:22] Amanda: And so those steps you’re looking at what’s bringing in money currently, what’s not? What else do you what?

[00:04:29] Amanda: What are those

[00:04:30] Bree: steps? Yeah, so the first thing is just like analyzing. So really looking at what is working in your business, where is the money coming from and then how much time do you have to work on these tasks? So really like taking the time to. Pull out a fresh new Google sheet if you need to write everything down.

[00:04:52] Bree: You know, when I start coaching people we create a roadmap and I send them this huge long form and I’m like, tell me everything, right? Because what I wanna do is to analyze what is currently happening in your business. What are your revenue streams right now? What are the percentages? Where is it coming from?

[00:05:09] Bree: And then also, What do you love to do? That’s one question I ask. What do you really love doing? What do you hate doing? What do you feel like you need to learn? That’s all part of analyzing things, and I think too often, We can just get caught up in the nitty gritty day to day task that end up taking all of our time.

[00:05:32] Bree: And sometimes yes, of course we’re gonna have those days, but sometimes it’s like, was that any, was I doing anything that’s actually helping my bottom line? just analyzing all of those little pieces. So that’s why I like to analyze, not only where is the money coming from, but also analyzing.

[00:05:48] Bree: What you love to do, what you’re not loving to do, and then how much time do you have to work on these tasks? I think that is such a huge aspect that entrepreneurs don’t look at is the time. They’re not looking at how much time am I actually spending on these areas, looking at the actual breakdown. you know, we hear about burnouts all the time.

[00:06:11] Bree: Right. And it’s because we’re spreading ourselves too thin. We’re trying to, or at least that’s what I’m saying. I don’t know about you, but I’m seeing that like we’re trying to do too many things. We’re trying to keep up with what we’re seeing on social media. We’re trying to keep up with what we’re seeing other entrepreneurs doing, not knowing how it’s going for them on the back end.

[00:06:29] Bree: Right? Not knowing if they have a team helping them, not knowing if they themselves are on the edge of burnout and about to quit. And so it’s really analyzing the time aspect of, okay, how much time am I spending on actually. Fulfilling my product, whether you’re a coach or teach on a certain topic or create a product, whatever it may be.

[00:06:51] Bree: How much time are you actually spending on the product? How much time are you spending on all the different aspects of marketing? And everything else that goes into it, how much time are you spending talking with anybody on your team, doing all of the quote unquote, CEO tasks of accounting and finance and managing and everything else.

[00:07:10] Bree: So that’s the first part. That’s a little long winded, but that’s really where I feel like you need to start is just really analyzing everything. Okay.

[00:07:18] Amanda: What would you say to the person who’s listening right now and is. I don’t even have anything to analyze. Nothing’s working. I’ve not seen any kind of growth.

[00:07:27] Amanda: Where do they begin?

[00:07:28] Bree: I think really in the same spots. even starting with okay, these are things that I don’t love and these are the things that I do love, and maybe I’ve been putting them on the back burner. Because if you’re not seeing that things are working or if you’re not loving what you’re doing, what are you not letting yourself do?

[00:07:48] Bree: one example for me is I have realized this year that I have put. Personal creativity on the back burner. I am a very creative, artistic person. I went to school for graphic design. I grew up in my grandma’s art studio, playing with paints and all and clay and all these different types of things. I love being creative.

[00:08:08] Bree: I have so many hobbies, you name it, and I’ve done it. with that, I have kind of stopped myself along the way from doing, yes, some like hobby things, but even just. Getting on the computer and doing some graphic design because I’m like, oh, I shouldn’t be doing that. I should be doing this instead. And what I was doing in the process of that, cuz I was like, oh well I should be spending my time over here instead, is I was squashing so much of my creativity.

[00:08:36] Bree: And I think that happens to a lot of entrepreneurs is whatever is bringing you joy, whatever is fueling you, sometimes we can see that as, ah, but that’s not really necessary right now. So let me just kind of push that to the side. And so to anybody that’s like. Feeling like everything is just on fire and nothing is working.

[00:08:55] Bree: I would say, what have you pushed off that you really love doing? Because maybe there’s some magic there that is missing and maybe there’s a spark in there that is stopping other things from working.

[00:09:08] Amanda: I think it’s funny because I. You’re such a creative person and you have a bunch of hobbies, and I, on the other hand, am the total opposite.

[00:09:16] Amanda: I don’t feel I’m a very like logic like based person, and I don’t have many hobbies except, reading and annoying my cats basically. And this year I wish that was not true, but this year I was like, I need hobbies because I can’t continue to run my business well. Without having something that I’m doing to pour back into me.

[00:09:40] Amanda: So I love that you brought that up because even though a lot of my hobbies, they, they don’t, they have zero connection to the business. It’s like I’m trying to learn how to play piano and things like that. If I don’t have that outlet of some sort in my life, everything inside of this office becomes chaos.

[00:09:56] Bree: Yeah, well cuz you’re not filling your cup. Mm-hmm. , right? And you’re just like pouring into your business. Pouring into your business. And if you’re not doing things to shut off at the end of the day or on the weekend, and I know like we have a lot of side hustlers, I’m sure listening that are like, well that’s when my time to work is.

[00:10:16] Bree: But I still think that there is. Dedicated time where you’re, okay, this is my work time, but you also need to prioritize that creative time and whether it is reading. I think that’s a great hobby. I am a huge reader. And or whether it’s, playing with your cats or sitting outside or going for a walk.

[00:10:34] Bree: those are all hobbies. we don’t have to have. painting or knitting or, you know, whatever it may be. Like your hobby can be whatever you want it to be. Just not work. . Yeah.

[00:10:46] Amanda: Well, and I wanted a hobby that I was bad at. Yeah. Because that’s something I’ve noticed as an entrepreneur. I don’t like being bad at things.

[00:10:56] Amanda: I’m one, I, I want things to go exactly as they’re supposed to go and to go very smoothly and perfectly. And that’s never the case in entrepreneurship . And

[00:11:05] Bree: so, oh yeah, I totally understand. Yeah.

[00:11:07] Amanda: I mean, it’s just, you have to learn, you have to move through the journey. Mm-hmm. and. That’s been interesting to pick up a couple hobbies that I’m absolutely trash at, like playing golf, I’m God awful, , it’s really bad.

[00:11:18] Amanda: But I get out there and I do it and I see the small improvements and as I’m playing I’m like, wow, this is a lot like business. And it’s just a nice juxtaposition to see in my life of like, okay, it’s okay to be bad at something. Because there’s going to be improvement. Even if it’s slower growth, then maybe I would like it to be, which I think ties right back into this whole conversation of, okay, but how do we set goals that are realistic?

[00:11:43] Amanda: Because I know that’s something that you preach on as well as like, okay, but goals have to be realistic. We’re not gonna jump to six figures in one year. Right, right. So what would the next step be if we, we’ve done the work to say, okay, this is what’s working. This is what’s not, this is what I love doing.

[00:12:00] Amanda: What do we do next in order to set some strategic and realistic goals?

[00:12:05] Bree: Yeah, so I think the next part is to strategize, is to really figure out, okay, I’ve looked at everything. Now how am I going to spend my time moving forward? What are the things that. Makes sense now that I have analyzed things what are some things that I need to either drop off completely or to really scale back on because it’s not bringing me joy or it’s really just not helping us grow, right?

[00:12:32] Bree: It’s not maybe bringing in new members, it’s not bringing in new leads. It’s not bringing in more income. And so it’s really just not working and I just wanna say, That’s okay. If you need to stop doing something, that’s okay. I have tested so many things over the year. We tried more recently we tried a Patreon that did not work.

[00:12:54] Bree: We had three people subscribe and my audience just didn’t love it. It wasn’t the right thing. So we tried it for a quarter. We tried it for three months, and then I was like, you know what? It’s just not working. It’s not. Worth putting the energy into right now because we’re building other revenue streams that are more efficient and seem to be something our audience loves more.

[00:13:15] Bree: And so while there’s kind of like that little, hit to your ego when you have to admit like, cool, that was not a good plan. , there’s so many things that you don’t know until you try. And so. Allowing yourself to stop doing something is okay. And then figuring out, what are the things you need to focus on and what do you need to let go of?

[00:13:37] Bree: So with and analyzing again, kind of, you’ve done all the analytics, so now strategizing, okay, what do I just need to be really real with myself on here? And I think that’s probably the biggest part of this strategy is. . You gotta take the emotion out of it and you have to look at the data and you have to look at the facts.

[00:13:57] Bree: You have to go back and look at those things that you did that deep dive on and take the emotion out of it. Which is hard cuz we’re emotional beings. Right? But at the end of the day for growth, we have to do that. And I love that you brought up like the realistic portion of it too, because that is something that I.

[00:14:19] Bree: Have to kind of check people that I coach on, which is hard cuz I’m like, okay, I’m not trying to squash your dreams. I a hundred percent we can believe we can hit, this number or whatever it is. But let’s be, let’s set some realistic goals here. Let’s, let’s try to hit this number this quarter, and then we’re gonna do an audit and we’re gonna revise and we’re gonna, you know, make some tweaks and changes and then we’re gonna do it again the next quarter.

[00:14:46] Bree: And we’re gonna see. Then once they do that with me, then they’re like, okay, I see what she means now. You know, once they get through that first quarter, they’re like, okay, cool. I, I see what she means by maybe needing to pace myself a little bit. And I, and I really would approach it that way of like, Needing to pace yourself, needing to go back to, you know, preventing yourself from spreading yourself too thin, prevent burnout, and that’s what it is with being realistic.

[00:15:14] Bree: I mean, are you gonna get lucky maybe? And something takes off and just blows up your numbers? Sure, that could happen, but we can’t strategize on that.

[00:15:23] Amanda: And I think so often when it seems like that’s happened to somebody else mm-hmm. , it really took months and years of that strategic step by step growth to really see the quote unquote explosion of things.

[00:15:36] Amanda: And I love, I love that you, you lay it out as a path to whatever that goal is you wanna be on. And it’s a journey that is gonna take some time because I think there is this. Stigma almost around the idea of goal setting where if you. Are not setting these super high goals. It means you don’t believe in yourself and you’re never gonna hit that goal and you’re, you’re stifling yourself.

[00:16:05] Amanda: I had a launch goal once, and when I set launch goals, you know, I have a good, better, best goal. I have one that’s realistic that I know I’m probably gonna hit, and then I have one that I would like to hit, and then I have another one that’s like, This is most likely not gonna happen, and I realize that, but I’m gonna set it anyways.

[00:16:21] Amanda: Sure. And I shared on Instagram that I had this, this best goal and that if I hit it, my husband said I could go to Disney and celebrate. And because that’s how I’d bribe myself always for everything. But I shared that and I shared I’m probably not gonna hit it, but this is that goal. And if I do, I get to like this really cool celebration and I got so many dms of people being like, you’re never gonna hit goals because you’re stifling yourself.

[00:16:49] Amanda: And it’s like, well, I mean, but there’s data behind these goals. I’m not pull them outta the hat. And so I’m just really glad that you brought it up just because you may not hit that goal right now, it doesn’t mean we can’t work towards it and that you can’t get there. It just. May not happen as quickly as you would like it to.

[00:17:08] Bree: And I think there’s so many other factors that go into it that when we’re busy setting goals, we just completely forget about and ignore we just ignore the fact that like, Hey, I could get sick. I could get covid, like I recently had covid. I know you recently had covid, like that knocked me out for a week.

[00:17:27] Bree: So like boom, there was a week off of work that I had not planned on. There could be something that happens with family. You may need to travel unexpectedly. Something may happen. There’s things that are going to happen that are unexpected. I feel like if we have learned nothing in the last two years, it’s to expect the unexpected in the world right now.

[00:17:46] Bree: When we set goals, we don’t factor those parts in. We also don’t consider like, How do I want my life to actually be? And I think that’s something, you know, a conversation that I have with friends is like, this is great. And like, yes, I wanna hit a certain financial income. I want to hit a point where I have people on my team supporting me.

[00:18:08] Bree: So I’m working a lot less. Absolutely. I have, huge audacious goals just like everybody else. But I’m not going to sacrifice my mental health, my day to day life, my love of travel and downtime with my husband because of those things. Some other people are gonna be in different situations and they’re gonna be in a season of hustle, and I’ve been in those seasons of hustle before.

[00:18:33] Bree: I was there at the beginning of this year where I did have to sacrifice time. But that should not be the norm. And so we need to also as we’re setting these goals, make sure, okay, cool. Am I able to work a realistic amount of time? Going back to that, being realistic with ourselves, am I still going to enjoy, my evenings or my weekends?

[00:18:54] Bree: Am I still gonna be able to travel or spend time with my family and not experience you? Burnout or guilt because I’m not doing other things. Because prioritizing hobbies, right? Prioritizing, spending time with friends, all of that is important to living a well-rounded life. And at the end of the day, if all we’re focused on is cranking out things with our business and being in a hustle season for that last over a year.

[00:19:24] Bree: Why are we even doing this? Like so many of us go into entrepreneurship wanting more freedom and flexibility in our lives, but end up creating goals and schedules for ourselves that are the opposite of that.

[00:19:36] Amanda: I love it so much and I love that you brought up the mental health aspect of this because.

[00:19:40] Amanda: Two totally different people can hit the same goal in two totally different ways, and it’ll feel completely different. Two different people can say, I wanna make $25,000 this year in my bank account, and one of them. Can work nonstop and be in total hustle mode. And it can feel, and they can set goal, a goal even higher than that.

[00:19:59] Amanda: Maybe. Maybe they say their goal is 30,000, but they end up hitting 25,000 and they get to the end of the year and they’re really unhappy because they didn’t know that 30,000 and because they worked so hard all year to quote unquote not see results. On the other hand, you’ve got someone. is allowing that space for travel and time with loved ones and hobbies and just to time off in general, because that’s okay.

[00:20:22] Amanda: Mm-hmm. , and they hit that 25,000 and they’re really excited about it because they hit their goal and they had sustainability within that goal to actually enjoy their life. And these people are hitting the same number for the end of the. But one person is really upset about it and one person is really thrilled and grateful for it.

[00:20:40] Amanda: And it makes all the difference in the world when it comes to setting goals, because if they’re not realistic, it’s really gonna have a huge impact on your mental health.

[00:20:47] Bree: Yeah. Well I think as I, I think we’re seeing a shift in society in general, right? where, we’re finally. Millennials and Gen Z, like we’re looking at things and being like, I don’t want to do that.

[00:21:03] Bree: Right? Or like, okay, I could make this much money, but I’m sacrificing this. And so like, is that worth it? And I, I think I’ve just hit a point where I’m like, sacrificing my mental health is not worth it. But, but not only that, I don’t think we fully understand how important spending time outside of work.

[00:21:26] Bree: Helps our work because if you’re constantly burning the light at both ends, and because I know if I work all day long, maybe take a break for dinner, have an hour off or whatever, hit it again, and then I’m working until I go to bed. I have the hardest time going to sleep. I don’t sleep good at night because I feel stressed and it goes throughout the night.

[00:21:49] Bree: And so I toss and turn. I wake up exhausted, and so the next day I am not nearly as productive. And if we do that too long, you can just see how your productivity is actually going down. I know you are like the queen of batching and, but like that is why I am such a huge proponent of batching too, because when you’re hyper focused on one thing and then give yourself breaks, you’re able to be so much more productive and get so much more done in a smaller chunk of time.

[00:22:18] Bree: And so when we prioritize letting our brains have a break, letting us, go and spend time with family, stopping work early, or just stopping work at a normal hour, that helps your productivity so much more than I think we fully. Acknowledge and

[00:22:38] Amanda: not only your productivity, but your creativity.

[00:22:40] Amanda: Yeah. Your your strategic thinking. Being able to play the long game in your business and think 10 steps ahead. You can’t do that if you’re burnt out. You’re in survival mode. Yeah. So all, all the way around with every skill you need as a business owner, giving yourself those breaks and building in that sustainability makes all the difference to see growth in your business.

[00:23:02] Bree: Yeah. And then, a after that, analyzing, strategizing is really just optimizing everything from there. It’s like, okay, cool. Now that I’ve strategized, like what I’m gonna let go, what I’m gonna focus on, where I’m gonna spend my time moving forward. Cool. Now optimize those systems. What systems do you need to put in place?

[00:23:20] Bree: So things run efficiently. What needs tweaking to perform a little bit better? Is it, do you need to like, maybe tweak your messaging? Do you need to do some message mining and talk to your audience? Is your stuff visible? I’ve had that issue before where somebody goes to my site, a friend will go to my site and be like, Bree, I don’t even see this.

[00:23:36] Bree: I’m like, oh, crap. I, I don’t even, didn’t even think about that. I’m like, yeah, it’s not visible. You can’t see it. looking at those things and just really optimizing everything you’re doing, which I’ve been kind of, I worked on over the summer is just like cool. It’s like the summer of housekeeping and like there was some optins that we needed to create.

[00:23:54] Bree: There was some things we needed to do with our email list, different things like that just to optimize so things work better because, I’m like, I just wanna work smarter and I don’t wanna work harder. Like I truly believe in that saying, and sometimes when I feel like I’m working too hard, I have to stop.

[00:24:10] Bree: And I need to be like, okay, let me go back to analyze. How can I work better? How can I work smarter? How can I strategize to do that? And then just keep optimizing.

[00:24:21] Amanda: I love that you bring this up because I think this is the least. Thought about part of not only setting goals, but also just in business in general.

[00:24:31] Amanda: So often you see people that set this product up and they’re really pumped about it, and then they do their launch or whatever they do to get it out there. They get it visible and it doesn’t convert quite as well as they wanted it to. And so they just leave it. They leave it, they throw it away, or they just leave it on the website and they never look at it again.

[00:24:52] Amanda: When in actuality, if you’re getting sales, that’s proof of concept. How can we optimize it? And I think it feels so much better to be working on something new because it is exciting. Mm-hmm. But then we just have a business that has way too much going on. Mm-hmm. and nothing’s optimized. And we’re working really hard to get all of those pieces to produce, when actually simpler would be better and do less things and just keep working on improving them and improving them, and improving them.

[00:25:20] Amanda: And yeah, I just want everyone that’s listening to remember that no matter where you start, you can keep improving it and optimizing it to see more improvements in the future.

[00:25:32] Bree: Well, it kind of goes back to, you were talking about golf, right? And you’re talking about how you need to keep practicing to get better.

[00:25:40] Bree: And so when you take up a new thing, right, you take up a new course and you launch it, and then you just leave it or aren’t unhappy with the results, you. I had a friend this year give me the best advice. I was launching a new program. I was a little nervous about it cause I had never offered something at that high of a ticket before.

[00:26:02] Bree: And I, your first instinct is to set some goals, right? Like, good, better, best for launching. But it was something I had never tried with my audience before. And she said, Bree, you need to make your goal to get a baseline. That’s your goal. Your goal is not a number. Your goal is not a certain amount of signups.

[00:26:21] Bree: Your goal is literally to do the entire launch, to put yourself out there and to get a baseline. If you get zero signups, that’s your baseline. If you get four signups, that’s your baseline. You’re not setting a number for yourself that you’re going, so you’re gonna fail.. if it’s zero, that’s just your baseline.

[00:26:41] Bree: And from there you learn from the data. You survey your audience, you talk to them. What landed with them, what didn’t work? The people that bought, why did they buy? What is really helping them? What of the messaging really spoke to them? So optimizing that completely. And when she gave me that advice, like huge stress off of my shoulders.

[00:27:04] Bree: I approached that launch so differently and just with more energy. Really focusing on my mental health as I went into it, of it’s just a baseline. It doesn’t matter. This, whether this succeeds or fails or whatever, does not mean that I’m succeeding or failing. It’s just to get a baseline because I wanna improve from here.

[00:27:23] Bree: And so I agree with you. If you just keep launching program after program, be like, oh, that one didn’t work. Let me try another one. Oh, that one didn’t work. Let me try another one. You’re spreading yourself so thin you’re gonna burn out. Instead. Of telling yourself that one didn’t work. Be like, okay, well that’s my baseline.

[00:27:41] Bree: Let me talk to my audience. Let me tweak it. Let me see because I know that, nine times out of 10, anybody that creates a product, it’s good. You guys are good. You guys are brilliant. You guys have this magic spark and you’re so good at what you do. So the product that you created is not bad. Maybe you’re just not the best at figuring out how to talk to your audience, which is okay.

[00:28:03] Bree: Like we don’t have to be good at everything. I’m not good at everything. And like, again, that’s another blow to the ego, right? Is thinking, oh, well I’m not good at this, maybe you need to work on some messaging a little bit more. Maybe you need to talk to your audience a little bit more. Maybe you need to up your graphics a little bit.

[00:28:17] Bree: Maybe something was hard to find. Maybe they were, you launched it in the summertime and everybody was out on vacation. Maybe you need to launch it at a different time of year. It’s. Spending time optimizing, don’t drop that awesome thing that you built. I

[00:28:30] Amanda: love that so much and I think that’s such an important message for everyone to hear because yeah, there with any launch, with any promotion, there are 2000 million whatever things that could affect it, whether that’s internal or even external.

[00:28:45] Amanda: Again, as we’ve learned in these last few years, expect the unexpected. Anything can happen in the world to really mess with the launch and people just maybe. Brain wise, out of office for the, you know, you just never know. There’s so many things that can affect and you never know how people are going to react at any given time.

[00:29:03] Amanda: I know that over the last few years, you know, I had some great launches in summer 2020 because no one could go anywhere and everyone was at home and they were like, well, we might as well work, right. What else are we gonna do? And then last fall, or not last. Dates are hard. Fall 2021, I had some terrible launches in fall, typically.

[00:29:25] Amanda: Mm-hmm. was a great time to launch things, but everyone was finally vaccinated and ready to travel and tired of being home. And so even in the fall, no one was, they weren’t, no one was paying attention to what was going on. Last fall was

[00:29:36] Bree: weird. That was so bizarre. .

[00:29:38] Amanda: But, so you just never know you can do everything right.

[00:29:41] Amanda: And it might not go well. So I love, I love the mindset shift of this is just the baseline. Even if it’s zero sales, it’s just the baseline and there are ways to tweak and improve. So that’s incredible. So we, we analyze, we strategize, we optimize. Where do we take the goals Once we have them set as far as what do we.

[00:30:06] Amanda: How do we keep ’em front of mind? How do we make sure that we’re sticking to those goals maybe and not veering off into new projects or getting distracted throughout the year? What does that look like?

[00:30:17] Bree: I think it just, I don’t have mine like written out in front of me. I have like certain things that I know that I’m working towards and optimizing things based on that, but I think it’s, is constantly checking in with yourself.

[00:30:32] Bree: and also having a good support system. Like I would not be where I am today without my business besties, and they often will check me. So I, I’m not the type of person who just like, I’m gonna start this new thing and I hit the ground running and I don’t run it by anybody. I, I just don’t do that. I, and I, I run it by people.

[00:30:53] Bree: I have forced myself to slow down, think it through. And before I start taking action steps. And that’s been something I’ve had to learn. Because if you had asked me this, four years ago I’m typical any gram three and I’m like, cool, well I could get that up and running in a week. Like, let’s go.

[00:31:11] Bree: I have learned that that’s not good for my mental health. That’s not good for my day to day life. And so I have forced myself to slow down and analyze anything before I add it on. And. That’s been something I think with goal setting in general that I have learned over the years is we think we can hit it faster if we just work harder.

[00:31:35] Bree: And if we move quickly and it just, every single time it leads to burnout. And so there is something special about growing slow and purposefully because again, You’re able to optimize things more. You’re able to spend more time talking to your audience. You’re able to listen to your audience more and hear what they’re saying and hear what is working for them, and those are the things that set you apart and help you.

[00:32:09] Bree: with reaching your goals. So yes, it’s keeping them front of mind. There’s gonna be certain things and certain numbers you wanna hit. Absolutely. And that’s great. But just being really realistic with yourself and being like, okay, it’s all right to slow down a little bit. What is the it?

[00:32:26] Bree: It’s hard because of course we wanna make more money, we wanna do all these things, but again, is this living the life that you want?

[00:32:33] Amanda: So good. Such an important question to continuously be asking yourself. If you were to give the listeners one action step to take away from this episode, what would it be?

[00:32:44] Bree: I would say to analyze where your time is being spent and does it make sense compared to where your revenue is coming from? Because I think when you do that, you’ll be surprised at where you’re wasting time. We’re not even wasting time where you think you’re spending time in a good spot, but is actually not helping along the way.

[00:33:06] Amanda: Okay. And then we end every episode with a book recommendation. So it can be business related or it can be just a fiction book that you love or anything in between. But what is one book that you would recommend for everyone to go read? Okay.

[00:33:18] Bree: Can I actually share two? Yeah. I, like I said some point in this episode.

[00:33:23] Bree: I love reading. I’m a huge reader. So for fun, the one that came to mind is a Girl’s Guide to Love and Supper Clubs by Dana Bait. I read this years and years ago. I have read it multiple times. It’s just, it’s so fun and lighthearted. If you love, if you’re a foodie, if you like a little bit of romance like.

[00:33:43] Bree: It’s fantastic. It’ll make you want to go to or start a supper club, . And then the other one that’s more, a little bit more serious I think for like self-improvement is I’m currently reading Think Like A Monk by Jay Sheti, and I am really enjoying it. Just again, like taking care of yourself, evaluating what’s going on with your mental health and living your best life.

[00:34:06] Amanda: So, yeah. Awesome. Both of those I haven’t read, so that’s exciting. Awesome. I have to go check those out. Bri, thank you so much for being here today. Where is the best place for people to find you if they wanna connect?

[00:34:19] Bree: Yeah. Over on Instagram my handle is Bree with two E’s pair, p

[00:34:23] Amanda: a i r. Perfect.

[00:34:25] Amanda: And we’ll have all of Bree’s information linked in the show notes, so be sure to check that out. Friends. Thank you

[00:34:30] Bree: Bree. Thanks for having me.

Episode 142: Purposeful and Sustainable Goal Setting with Bree Pair

You'll also love

Meet Amanda