Anna Maria Locke

goals

How to do a monthly audit for your life coaching business

2023Anna Locke

Happy February! It’s a new month and on my to-do list is to review January and take an objective look at how the month went for my life, business, and goals.

It’s usually more exciting and fun to look forward and set new goals and plans, but it’s vital to reflect before we launch forward so we can learn from what didn’t work, continue what’s working, and make tweaks and adjustments as necessary!

So if you haven’t already, join me for a monthly life and biz audit.

It’s never too late to do this if you’re finding this post mid-month. And obviously you can use this process for any and every month of the year. Consistency and scheduling it into your work flow is where you’ll see the most impact.

This process can be used for any small business, but I’m personally coming from a life coaching perspective!

Because your life is a key factor in how you show up in your business, we aren’t just going to look at the numbers but also reflect on the big picture of how you’re feeling, managing your energy, and balancing your priorities.

The key for any kind of personal review process is to do your best to keep your emotions out of it! Put on your official CEO hat and pretend you’re looking at someone else’s work if you need to. If you feel yourself sinking into judgment, self criticism, any kind of wonky emotional funk, take a step back and get yourself into a higher energy state before returning to the process.

This is objective, not personal.

This is objective, not personal.

This is objective, not personal.

The whole point is to get curious and treat your work like one big beautiful messy creative experiment.

As they say in Sesame Street, “I wonder? What if? Let’s try!”


Monthly Life and Biz Review Process


  • Look at your previous month’s content. This includes social media posts, videos, newsletters, blogs, anywhere you showed up and shared online. What did well, and what didn’t according to engagement, open rates, etc? How can you tweak what you’re doing to do more of what’s working?

  • What do you want to share more of? What would feel really good, fun, natural, and exciting?

  • What area/s of life do you want to spend more time in?

  • What are your TOP 3 priorities for the upcoming month for life, business, and yourself?

  • What was your favorite thing about the past month? What didn’t go so well?

  • How can you make yourself more visible and get in front of more of your ideal audience?

  • What are some achievable and inspiring goal ideas for the month ahead?

Tip to add some magic and spice:

Set a “theme” for your monthly goals. For example, my theme for January was getting back into a groove with my daily and weekly routines, and my theme for February is going to focus on self love and the things that make me happy.

If you want some help and support in crafting your goals and living into your vision and desires for your life and business, I’d love to connect with you!

Click here to book a free 30 minute Mini Glow Up session, where we’ll chat about where you’re at and where you want to be, and I’ll help you walk away with one action step or aha moment.

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My 2023 Goals (plus goal setting tips from a life coach)

2023Anna Locke
Goal setting tips from a life coach, plus my 2023 goals

This is Part 2 of my 2023 goal setting series. Read Part 1, my 2022 year in review, here!

This year already feels different. Do you feel it too?

January is usually the longest, gloomiest month of the year for me, even more since we moved to west MI where the sun doesn’t rise until after 8am and lake effect clouds drown out any glimpse of sun. 

However, I’m finally getting that magical boost of second trimester energy and it’s completely overpowering my winter blahs. Especially in contrast to how low I felt through the past few months, with a tough first tri combined with endless daycare courtesy of the 3 year old. I probably don’t need to tell you how insane this virus season has been, but woah being sick and pregnant really sucks ha.

Anyways, I entered the new year feeling a surge of energy and motivation I haven’t really experienced in a long time. Maybe ever!

Like I said in my previous post, last year felt like a year of staging. Lots of not so fun growing pains (house hunting, trying to conceive, moving, etc) necessary to get to the other side.

And now I feel suspended in a magic bubble of time where we’re settled into our home and routine, I have the time, energy, and support to do all the things I want to do while also taking care of myself, yet the chaos of a new baby is still a comfortable four months away.

So I’ve been fully enjoying this quiet, gloomy, hibernation mode month to get back to work and map out all the plans and ideas that have been simmering in my head.

I’ve been using the Power Sheets goal planner for the past 5 years now as a tool to help me plan out my annual goals and then break them down into monthly, weekly, and daily actions.

This process works for me because I’m a visual, big picture person. I love brain-dumping and getting everything out on paper, and then seeing how my monthly and weekly plans connect back to my greater vision. It helps me stay focused and in action mode on a daily basis instead of spinning out in FOMO overwhelm with all my ideas!

How I set my annual goals

I’ve found it most helpful to think about a few broad, long term goals that reflect the areas of life I want to focus on this year and then break them down into quarterly, monthly, and weekly plans. 

As a certified Beautiful You Life Coach, I’ve been trained and had years of fun practice in creating goals that aren’t just specific/measurable/etc etc but feel inspiring, heart centered, and really encapsulate who I want to be as I grow into this next phase of myself.  

My annual, bigger picture goals tend to be more broad, and then I break them down into smaller mini-goals and actions to visualize how I’m going to get from point A to point B. 

The very first action step I recommend after setting a goal is to break out your journal and dig deep into why this goal is important, how you want to feel as you work towards it and then ultimately achieve or embody the end result, and where you are now at the starting line.

This helps you mentally and emotionally connect to your goal and makes taking the necessary actions much easier and natural. Sometimes I don’t even create an action plan - after leaning into my vision for my goal I “set it and forget it” and let myself intuitively and subconsciously flow into where I want to go. This takes a lot of self trust though!

When I’m working with a life coaching client, our very first session is a goal setting intensive where we establish the goals they’ll be working towards in our time together. Then I help them create personalized journal prompts and foundation-setting actions to ground into their vision. If this sounds like something that would be supportive to you, you can book a free mini consult here to get a taste of what it’s like to work with me!

We can’t predict the future or see what plot twists the year will bring (RIP my 2020 vision board), but I do know our family has an enormous life change coming in May aka the ticking time bomb inside my uterus who is kicking me as I type. So my 2023 goals are a mix of “this needs to get done before Bebe Dos,” and “this could flow into a 2024 goal and that is totally fine.”

Goals don’t have to be timeline dependent :) you just need a way to measure progress, whether that’s tangible check lists or events with a deadline, or simply recording how you feel over time and grow as a person.

Here are a few of my core 2023 goals for life and business!


LIFE GOALS


Welcome Baby 2 into our family

This is pretty self explanatory. He’s due in late May, which still seems far away but I know in a month or two it will start getting real! 

What does “success” look like for this by the end of 2023?

  • Finding our groove as a new family unit of four.

  • Feeling recovered physically and rebuilding my strength.

  • Getting the support we need, and taking care of my mental health.

Mini Goals/Action Steps

  • Continue with my walking and strength training routine

  • Find a therapist, pelvic floor PT, and lactation consultant

  • Sign up for postpartum home fitness program

  • Order a bed for T

  • Set up nursery

  • Go through baby stuff/make registry of things we need

  • Sew all the newborn clothes I want to :)

  • Spend intentional 1:1 time with T

(Obviously these mini-goals and actions will shift and new priorities will emerge once the baby is actually here)


Build our community here in Grand Rapids

The biggest thing I miss about leaving Chicago is our community of friends and family there. I’ve made some great new friends so far here but now we’ve been in MI for over a year (and pandemic restrictions continue to lift… for now…) it’s time to get more intentional with getting out there and being social! We are on the hunt for a church community, and I’m hoping to find some kind of new moms group like I had with Thomas too for early postpartum sanity. 


Create routines and habits to support my mental and physical health

What does success look like?

  • Seeing a therapist regularly and feeling mentally and emotionally stable through postpartum

  • Rehab my body postpartum

  • Continue exercise routine to have a strong and healthy pregnancy


Settle into our house and create a beautiful, cozy home

What does success look like?

  • Feel settled and organized vs. messy and chaotic

  • Have all our rooms set up

  • Complete a few projects

  • Hire cleaners 1-2/month


BIZ GOALS


Grow my life coaching business with purpose and joy.

This is my number one goal for 2023/2024. As I shared in my last blog post, I’ve massively streamlined my coaching business so I can solely focus on my 1:1 life coaching this year. Building deep connections with women on an individual level and supporting them through life transitions so they can feel confident and at home in themselves is something I consider a spiritual calling, but also something I’ve resisted focusing on because the things that are closest to our hearts also feel the most scary !!

What does success look like?

  • Support 6-8 other women and moms in creating an inspired life through 1:1 coaching

  • Launch Back to Biz with Baby group program this fall with 5+ members

  • Feel like I have the childcare support I need

  • Feel supported and intentional through maternity leave and return

  • See bank accounts growing

Mini Goals

(most of these have their own set of mini-mini goals and obviously lots of actions, lol)

  • Book 4+ clients by maternity leave

  • Grow email list to 750 subscribers

  • Build my audience with regular social media strategy and collabs

  • Buy a new laptop!

  • Plan for 8 weeks off for mat leave

  • Create LLC

  • Launch Back to Biz with Baby group program in fall

  • Blog and send a newsletter 3-4/week

  • Run free masterclasses and update opt-in

  • Take December off for the holidays


Continue to cultivate joy, inspiration, and creativity with my Etsy shop

I’ve run my Etsy  since 2013 as a fun creative outlet (and way to fund my fabric and yarn obsessions) but last year I started viewing it as a more official side hustle. I went through all the CPSC compliance hoops to officially register as a small batch manufacturer and launched my first collections of children’s clothing! I love making adorable baby clothes, accessories, and home goods to add a pop of color and beauty to every day life. And I love love LOVE curating fabric collections and buying allll the Rifle Paper Co, hehe. Since sewing is extremely time consuming I’m leaving this goal a little open-ended since I don’t know how life will look after baby arrives, but I’d love to continue releasing seasonal children’s collections, doing more custom orders, and maybe even selling at my first makers market or pop up show locally!

What would success look like?

  • Have fun!

  • Turn profit in my seasonal drops

  • Learn and expand my skills

  • Buy a serger with profits

  • Do my first market! (holiday?)

  • Increase listings to ~80

Mini goals/timeline

  • Seasonal collection drops:

Jan - spring kitchen

Feb - Easter baby

Mar - spring/summer collection

Apr - finish orders and prep for mat leave

May to Sept - mat leave

Oct - holiday launch

  • Grow IG reach and email list (post reels, update hashtags, engage with other accounts)

  • Do my first market ?


Goal setting tips from a life coach

It always seems impossible until it's done
It always seems impossible until it’s done
— Nelson Mandela

This quote has been in my mind constantly, especially when the little niggle of self doubt creeps in.

It’s fun and inspiring to create a vision or exciting goals for your life, but when we get back down to reality it’s so hard to discipline ourselves to take the action steps required to bring them to life. Usually actions either feel boring and a grind, or else require us to go out of our comfort zones and trigger lots of insecurities and fear. Either way it’s easy to let our many responsibilities of daily life to distract us from the deeper things we actually want to do. Which is why so many of our goals and new years resolutions “fail” or sit on the backburner year after year.

  • What would it take for you to choose one goal to fully devote yourself to achieving this year? 

  • What would that goal be? 

  • What would you need to do? 

  • What support would you need? 

  • What would it feel like to be the person you need to be to live out that goal?

And then instead of feeling discouraged or beating yourself up for “failing” to achieve your goals or falling behind in life, what if you could send yourself some epic compassion and love, celebrate what you HAVE been through over the past couple of years, and decide that you get to start fresh this year?

Unsurprisingly, one of the easiest and fastest ways to actually get from where you are to where you want to be is to invest in the personal support of a life coach. Supporting you in pursuing and achieving meaningful goals and creating a life you love is literally our job description 🙂

If you’d like to work with me, I invite you to schedule a free 30 minute Mini Glow Up session here! This is a chance for us to get to know each other, for you to share your ideas, and receive a sample of what it’s like to be coached by me. You’ll walk away with one powerful takeaway or mindset shift and get a feel if working together would be a good fit for you this year.

Cheers to a new year and new adventures ahead!

xo Anna

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3 steps to setting intentional goals for 2020

2020Anna Locke
how to set intentional goals for 2020.png

Happy new year!

Every January I get a rush of fresh energy and the urge to look at the big open blank canvas of the calendar stretching before me, and fill it up with ideas and plans and goals.

I labeled 2019 the Year of the Baby since Thomas was born in August, so the entire year was consumed by pregnancy, recovering from childbirth, and getting to know our little guy and my new role as a mother. I’m very grateful I had the freedom and flexibility to focus most of my time and energy on this experience and be as present as possible for it, because the transition into motherhood is seriously intense in every definition of the word!

Now that we’re finding our groove (and sleeping more), I’m finally feeling out of survival mode with a little bit of extra creative energy to burn, and feel incredibly excited about the possibilities of the new year. I’m ready to get back into my work as a life coach and business mentor for my Beachbody team, and stretch myself in new ways. To be honest, it’s a huge relief that I finally don't have to think about getting pregnant, being pregnant, giving birth, or surviving the 4th trimester. Feels like a literal and figurative weight off my life!

How are you feeling?

Maybe a little discouraged that you didn’t accomplish as much in 2019 as you hoped? 

Maybe proud of yourself for hitting some big goals, but a little deflated as we cycle onward, like what now

Maybe like me, navigating a major life transition or starting something new.

Maybe you are hopeful and optimistic.

Maybe you’re overwhelmed and drained.

You’re probably an ambitious, driven, high achiever who craves purpose and alignment with your values, and maybe you’re faced with a situation in life, relationships, or work where you’re feeling unaligned and ready for big change, but are afraid to commit and dive in.

Deep breath.

While looking ahead at what you want to accomplish this year, it’s important to be intentional when setting realistic yet inspiring goals so we can meet ourselves where we’re at and be sure to actually follow through.

I’ve been using the same process I share with my life coaching clients to set intentions and heart centered goals for 5 or 6 years now. I say “process” very loosely, because it is such a personal thing and really can’t be distilled into a nice simple cookie cutter system. In fact, I am challenging myself to avoid coaches and experts who preach “systems” these days, because what works for them may or may not work for you. And we all deserve to feel successful as we grow and expand this year!

how to follow through on your goals.png

Here’s my loose 3 step framework for setting heart centered, intentional goals:

1. Ask: How do you want to feel?

A few years ago I discovered Danielle LaPorte’s The Desire Map system and instantly fell in love with the radical approach to setting goals based on core desired feelings instead of achievements.

Behind all our intentions and dreams is a desire to feel a certain way.

How will you feel when you lose 20 pounds? Start your business? Move across the country? Deepen your relationship with your partner? Pay off your debt?

When you’re clear on how you want to feel, you’ll gain clarity on what you need to do to move into that feeling, and might even find yourself adjusting your goal to be more aligned with the person you want to become. It also takes the pressure off and allows us to enjoy the process, since we can always control how we feel. YES, I promise! Don’t wait until you’ve achieved your goal to practice feeling how you want to feel, and the end result will feel a lot closer and easier to reach.

2. Know yourself

The more you know about yourself and how you’re wired, the easier it will be to figure out what you need to do or shift in order to feel fulfilled. Because ultimately, isn’t that the whole point of goal setting in the first place? It’s not a race to see how much we can accomplish or achieve before we die. It’s about living as fully as we can! Really living. Not living to get to the next step, but enjoying where we are in this season or stage of the journey.

I recommend seeking out a coach, friend, personality typing system that intrigues you, and be  a lifelong learner of yourself.

But for now, trust that the years you’ve already lived have provided you with all the wisdom and insight you need.

Here are a few questions to think about or journal through:

  • What are your typical sabotaging thoughts?

  • How do you hold yourself back?

  • What kinds of goals have you failed to reach? (Hint: stop setting those kinds of goals)

  • What motivates and inspires you? (Hint: follow that path)

  • What challenges you to grow?

  • What is actually FUN for you?

For example, don’t set a goal to run a marathon if you actually hate running. This sounds obvious, right? But sometimes we get blindsided and swept up in other people’s enthusiasms without pausing to ask ourselves if it’s something we want to do.

Maybe you love structure and routine and setting a detailed plan then crushing it.

Maybe having a plan actually triggers you into self sabotage because you need more freedom and flexibility.

Maybe you love the actual process of goal setting, but are turned off by in-depth tracking systems or action plans, and just need a monthly or quarterly check-in with your bigger picture (this is me!)

Know yourself and how you operate!

This also allows you to start with your “why”. Your belief systems. The foundation behind everything you do. No more second guessing yourself!

If you want more guidance in digging a little deeper into your values and beliefs, you can download my free Create an Inspired Year goal setting journal guide in my resource vault here!

3. Differentiate between ACTION and OUTCOME based goals

We live in a culture that overemphasizes outcomes and achievements, getting things done and being as productive as possible.

This leads to a lot of dissatisfaction and disconnection. We are dissatisfied because in our race for more, we aren’t allowing ourselves to enjoy what we already have. We are disconnected from our intuition and heart nudges, from our relationships, from nature. It all leads to burnout, mental health issues, failing relationships, the destruction of the environment if you want to zoom out.

But if you zoom all the way in, what I’m most passionate about studying and healing is our disconnection to ourselves.

What does this disconnection look like? Lack of boundaries, self love, self trust, eating disorders, mood disorders. Chronically feeling like we are never good enough. Physical health issues.

When we reclaim our connection to ourselves, we reclaim our power.

But in order to do that, we have to stop listening to the noise around us, stop comparing ourselves to what everyone else is doing, and start tuning in. We have to have faith. We have to trust that we are good enough. That it’s safe to slow down. We have to practice radical self care. We have to risk our family, friends, coworkers not understanding or supporting the changes we are making. 

We have to basically be counter-cultural.

What does that actually look like in practice?

One way to overcome addiction to achievement and start to feel more aligned (workaholism = attaching sense of identity and worth to external achievements, recognition and productivity) is to bring awareness to outcome vs action goals.

OUTCOME GOAL: lose 10 pounds

ACTION GOAL: move my body 30 mins a day in a way that feels good

We have less control over outcomes, so it’s easy to feel like we’re constantly failing.

Actions are things we can mark as either done or not done. By focusing on actions, we start to build a sense of self trust by following through on our word to ourselves. We can also quickly realize if our outcome goals we want are actually something we want! Maybe you are failing to reach an outcome goal because you aren’t ready or wiling to take the actions necessary to reach it. That’s ok. This is how we align with ourselves, by letting go of actions and related outcomes that don’t actually feel good. 

What works for someone else doesn’t have to work for you.

This is FREEDOM! Permission to stop comparing yourself to anyone else.

Final thoughts

Remember that every finish line is another starting line. We’re constantly changing and evolving, and life is always changing around us. Embrace the uncertainty and release your expectations that things “should” happen in a certain timeline, and allow your goals to evolve and grow with you.

Lets put less emphasis on achieving or checking boxes off a list or nailing our “SMART goals” and more emphasis on feeling happy and fulfilled, right here today, in the life we’ve created for ourselves. Because wherever you are right now, even if you are dissatisfied or unhappy, is a product of all the decisions you’ve made up until this moment in your life.

If you want to change your reality, change the daily decisions you are making. You don’t have to make big bold moves. Tiny micro shifts will point you in a whole new trajectory if you just give yourself the gift of time.

And don’t forget to celebrate how far you’ve already come :)

You’ve got this!

xo Anna