Ep. 249: Coffee Over Conversations (Goals Edition)

Subscribe: RSS

Conversation About Goals

I did not set any business goals for 2025.

That might sound crazy – okay, it definitely sounds crazy, but in today’s episode I’m going to share why and what I did instead.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Join me on Monday evenings at 4:00 pm Pacific time/7:00 pm Eastern time for my weekly YouTube Lives!
Snag the 2025 Chasing Simple Marketing Planner!
Take a look at my Complete Marketing Game Plan for Course Creators—Playbook
Check out my book for a crash course in content marketing
Check Out the Goals with Laken Goal Planner
This week’s action step: YOU, no phone, no computer….just a journal and a coffee. Figure out where your business is at, where you want it to be, and what you need. Not just what people say you need.
This week’s book recommendation: The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran
Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield

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 you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at hello@amandawarfield.com!

Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!

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

I didn’t set any business goals for 2025. That might sound crazy. Okay. It’s definitely, it definitely sounds crazy. But in today’s episode, I’m going to share why and what I did instead. You’re listening to episode 249 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple content planner, and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.

com slash planner.

How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, How do I put it all together to market my business strategically?

Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome friend, this is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.

I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business, so that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.

When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And, when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell, reading in our hammock, watching GameCog sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me.

If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing Is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love.

Each week, I’ll bring you transparent conversations. actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips, and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business.

Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we?

Here’s the deal, friend. It’s time for your marketing to stop feeling like a constant grind and start feeling like the ball is in your hands. 2025 is the year that you’re going to make more sales with less effort through a simple but impactful marketing strategy. And you’re going to do it with the help of the Chasing Symbol playbook, which includes all of my courses, templates, and workshops in one spot.

It’s everything you need to simplify your marketing and fill more seats in your course. If this sounds like exactly what you need, head on over to amandawarfield. com slash shop to join the waitlist. Everyone on the waitlist when the playbook launches will be getting a special bonus and discount. So head on over to amandawarfield.

com slash shop and add yourself to this list today.

If you’re a longtime listener, you know that I left goal planners in the past a while ago. I stopped using gold planners for about a year and then I came back to using a gold planner and I used Lakenstrom’s Plan with Laken. I used her goal planner. Let me tell you the prep work in her goal planner is worth It’s weight in gold.

I will link to her planner in the show notes actually because truly it’s so good and that prep work Honestly was worth What I paid for the entire year as a planner. Um, so I’ll link that in the show notes because I do think the prep work part of a planner is so valuable. But, I used hers for a year. And by used, I mean I did the prep work and I filled out the goals for January and I filled out the goals for February and then I never did anything again.

So for 2025, I’ve once again said goodbye to a goal planner. Now, if you’re a long time listener, you also know that My problem with goal planners, it’s not the planner, it’s a me problem. I have this compulsion to fill out every line and to, to overburden myself with goals. And I know logically not to do that, and yet I still have this compulsion.

So I’ve just found that it’s better for me, mentally, at this point in my life, to not use them. That’s just what I’ve decided. However, Moving into 2025, I’ve also decided not to set yearly business goals for myself either. Now, is this something that I recommend for everyone? No, I think that this uniquely works for the place I am at in my business right now.

And by that, I mean that one, We’ve had a lot of life changes in the last year, year and a half, which again, if you’re a long time listener, you know that I am now the breadwinner and I am making a full time income without working full time in my business. I’m actually working very part time in my business, which is amazing.

It’s the dream, right? But because I’m working very part time, I I don’t have a lot of time for all of these big ideas and all of these goals and all of these things that I would love to accomplish. I just don’t have it. And so mentally, I know that setting goals is not going to be, it’s not going to be healthy for myself.

So that’s one thing. One reason why where I’m at currently in my business. This no goals is, it works for me for this year. The other thing is that I also have I’ve been doing yearly planning for myself for so long now that I already have my promotions and my launches and all of those things that you would do in your yearly planning.

I’ve got to love that down. I don’t need to sit down and say, okay, which month am I going to launch this? Which month am I going to launch that? I know. Without having to set up an entire plan when I’m going to do my live launch of content batching bootcamp I know when I’m going to be promoting a year in preview I know when I’m going you know, I’ve got all of these down.

It’s Pretty much the same every year and I have all of the marketing copy. I have the emails I have all of the things that I already need and would need to create and so I don’t have to have this big long I need to set aside a ton of time to work on this project for this launch because all of that’s already done So if you’re not in that place not having goals and not doing a full yearly Marketing planning session might not be a great idea.

I already know, okay, all of my big dates for this year, I mark them off as we plan them. They’re already done. Um, I already know when those promotions are going. All of those things that I teach inside of a year in Preview and how to set up that marketing calendar for the year, I do that as I go. It’s just part of my natural rhythms and routines, and so I don’t have to set aside all of this time to do that and do all of these big goal setting and whatnot.

Because it’s, it’s just naturally part of my rhythms. And so that’s another reason why this works for me this year. I don’t have the capacity to have a ton of goals. And I also naturally do these things that I teach in my yearly marketing class, right? Here’s the thing. I am not in a growth year. for my business.

The first, I don’t know, six, seven years of business, I was focused on growing, growing, growing, growing, growing. Which is natural, right? As you’re getting started, you are hustling, you are going, you are going, you are going. Last year was my first year where I wasn’t focused on growth. I was focused purely on sustainability.

And I still saw growth, which was so fun, but I wasn’t focused on growth. And this year I’m also not focused on growth, which means that if I was really to sit there and set goals, it would just be keep serving my people. Well, I have my clients for 2025 already. I have my full client roster and if more people reach out, that’s great.

But. I’m really happy with what I have at this point, and I’ve already got a couple of big launch copywriting clients on my calendar for this year. I’m set, and I have my, my courses, I have my shop, I have my community, and so I’m not in a growth phase. I’m in a Sustainability, serving my people well phase, which is another reason that I didn’t feel the need to set goals this year other than just keep doing what I’m doing, serve my people well.

But that being said, I always like to have something I’m working towards, right? I, I may not have big goals, but I do have this, this idea of what I’m working towards. And something that I did was I read the, um, the 12 week year by, I believe, Brian Moran. I will link to that in the show notes. Spoiler, that’s your book for this episode.

Um, your book recommendation. But I read this book a few years ago and I thought, this is crazy. A 12 week year? Absolutely not. I need to have yearly plans. I need to know what’s coming in the quarters to come. And so I put it aside and thought, that’s cool. In theory, but it’s not for me. However, I reread it at the end of last year.

And again, now that I have these rhythms in place where I know what my year looks like, as far as my marketing goes, I was able to, to really stop and think about how I could implement it. And I thought, you know what? Yeah, this 12 week year. makes a lot of sense for where I’m at currently. And so, all I’ve really thought about thus far is Q1 for 2025.

I haven’t thought about what I’m going to do in Q2 or Q3 or Q4 because all of the plans that I needed to make for Q2, Q3, and Q4 I made last year. I already know what conferences I’m going to. I already know what my big sales are going to be. I already know where I’m leading people, right? So, I don’t need to focus on anything besides what am I doing right now.

So I’ll share this. I know that my big ultimate goal for the year Or for the quarter, I guess you could say. Um, but I think really, realistically, into the year is that I am really going to be promoting my best sellers. And I love everything in my shop. And it’s so hard for me. I know there’s the um, the writer phrase, kill your darlings.

And I’m struggling to do that. There’s some things in my shop that probably need to go and I just love them so much. And so I haven’t been able to do that. But my focus this year It’s going to be on the bestsellers and probably unsurprisingly, my bestsellers all align really well with each other. What a shock.

Um, but those things that sell best, that’s what I’m going to be really focused on this year. I’m really going to be focused on ultimately getting people into content batching bootcamp. It’s my bestseller. It’s the one I get the most feedback from. Students love it. It truly changes their life and business.

And that’s just where I’m going to focus. I’m going to be focused on funnels and promotions. that lead to content batching bootcamp. That’s the ultimate goal this year, setting up those funnels. So I have my free challenge, content planning bootcamp. If you want to check it out, I will link to it in the show notes.

And with it, you spend three days where I walk you through how to create next month content plan. Spoiler, that leads you to a natural place where, okay, I have my plan, now I need to create content. How do I create content quickly? Oh, I have content batching bootcamp. Here’s how you can sustainably create next month’s content now that you have a plan for it.

And they flow into each other. And so that’s my big ultimate goal, I guess you could say, but it’s not really a goal, it’s just a plan where I’m going to be sending people throughout the year to content planning bootcamp, which will then lead them into content batching bootcamp. That’s the big plan.

That’s it. That’s all I’m focused on outside of here are my people. Here are my students that I’m currently serving. Here are my clients that I’m currently serving. Here are my community members that I’m currently serving and giving them all the value that I can, right? Showing up for them. My big plan.

Sending people through that funnel and saying, Hey, here’s what you need help with. You need help creating a plan. Well, now you have the plan. Now you need to create the content. How do you create the content sustainably and easily and keep up with it month after month? It’s, that’s it. That’s, that’s it. Now, outside of having that big master plan of how I’m going to bring in these new people, right?

I have one. Project that I am focused on right now and that is getting the Chasing Symbol playbook out into the world The Chasing Symbol playbook is Honestly, it’s literally everything. It’s all those darlings that I can’t kill off. No, I’m just kidding. Um, I mean it is but That’s not why I created it, but it’s everything you need to create a sustainable marketing plan.

And I walk you through these four different ecosystems where we’ve got the content creation ecosystem. So we’ve got content patching bootcamp and all of my templates and small offers and things that go along with that to help you create your content. And then we move into, okay, now you know how to create content sustainably.

Let’s talk about strategy and here’s how to create your content strategy. So we’ve got a year in preview. And all of the different things with that. Okay, now you know how to create a strategy and you’re showing up consistently. Let’s talk about launches. And then let’s talk about evergreen ecosystems.

And so these ecosystems build on each other. And what I found is that. I have so many different offers, it can be overwhelming and I just wanted, I wanted one place where people could go and they could go, here’s everything. And here’s how you walk through them in a way that makes sense so that you can have sustainable and simple marketing instead of should I do this first or should I focus on this first or should I do this first?

It’s creation strategy launch evergreen. And it walks you through that. The other beauty of it is that when you enroll in the playbook, you actually get a year in the community at the VIP tier. And so the VIP tier of the community, they actually get a one on one call with me each quarter. And so you’ll have four one on one calls with me where each quarter we can focus on a different ecosystem and we can walk you through.

Okay. This quarter, I want you to focus on creation. What are your questions? What do you have for me? And so on and so forth. VIP tier members also have the ability to submit content and copy for review every single week, which is such a great perk. And so with this, you don’t only get access to everything I’ve created educationally, but you also get one on one access to me.

So, I’m super pumped about this, and that’s the one project I have going on right now. That’s it. Just getting that finished and up and out and out into the world. And so And that’s how I set goals this year. Instead of having goals, I have one ultimate plan and I have one project. And when I finish that project, I’ll look at the plan and I’ll go, okay, what’s next?

What do I need to do next to, to continue working towards this ultimate plan and making it even better? And as far as revenue goals, I didn’t even, I don’t really have a revenue goal for the year. I have that, okay, I want to, I don’t want to do less than I did last year. That’s really the only goal. It’d be cool if I hit six figures, but I’m not necessarily working towards that.

It’s very much a year of, I need this amount, I have the clients to hit this amount, and everything else is extra. So, it sounds messy, as I say this all out loud. But that’s, that’s a behind the scenes look on what I’m doing in 2025 instead of setting goals. Now, 2026 may look totally different. I don’t know.

I’ve learned to, to, um, never have expectations for where life is going to take us. And so I don’t know what 2026 is going to look like. I don’t have a clue. Will I be back in a growth cycle? Will I continue to just enjoy running my business? I, I really don’t know. Um, we’ll find out together, I guess, in next year’s Coffee Over Conversations Goals Edition episode.

Um, no, truly, I don’t know what next year will bring. Maybe I’ll go back to goal planners. Maybe I will continue to do something like this. I think if I could give you an action step for this episode, uh, it would be to sit down and And be honest with yourself about where you are in your business and to ask yourself what you actually need instead of what other people tell you you need.

Because I have found the most joy in running my business and asking myself that question and really living into that instead of I need to do this, I need to do that, I need to do that. I need to do what these other people are saying that I’ve got to have as a business owner. Instead of doing all of that and just simply saying, you know what, I want this, or this is what I need in my life right now, or this is what fires me up and just leaning into those things.

So not a super firm action step this week. Sorry about that. I try to give you really, really actionable things, but. Maybe it’s simply give yourself an hour to go to a coffee shop with just you and a journal.

No phone, no computer, just a journal and just see what happens. Like I said earlier, your book recommendation for this week is The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran. And again, read it and if it’s not right for you, say that’s a cool thought and put it away. You don’t have to implement it. But it may be something that comes around in five years that you say, Oh, maybe I want to read that again.

That was an interesting idea. Let me see if that makes sense for this current phase of my life and business. All right, my friend. With that, I hope it should go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over at amandawarfield. com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.

Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast. And ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.

Launching March 11th