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

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!

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LIFE GOALS

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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)

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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. 

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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

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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

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BIZ GOALS

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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

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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 ?

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Goal setting tips from a life coach

“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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Common Fears to Expect While Growing Your Business

It takes what I call COURAGEOUS AUTHENTICITY to build a heart centered business that's an expression of who you are, because it forces us to (A) figure out who we are in the first place and (B) get super vulnerable and bare our souls to the internet and world !!

In my 5 years of online business I've realized that we all deal with pretty much the exact same fears: fear of rejection, judgment, failure, success, no one signing up for our stuff, not ever finishing what we start...

There’s a difference between what I consider legit fear (e.g. danger or harm coming to you or someone you care about) versus irrational fear (what our ego or crazybrain considers danger, but won’t actually put us in harms way).

The way we evolved, our instinctual brain can’t tell the difference between being chased by a knife wielding stranger down a dark alley, and going out of our comfort zone to do something we’ve never done before. Our fear instinct sends DANGER warnings to our nervous system in either case, and we react accordingly.

In the second scenario, whenever we go out of our comfort zone we’re placing ourselves at risk of failure, judgment, increased visibility, which are uncomfortable to our ego that just wants us to fit in and play small.

So are you going to run or hide? Or is your adult, logical, rational truth brain going to override your instincts and remind you that you are indeed safe, even if personal growth is uncomfortable?

Almost all of our “irrational” fears can be traced back to one of two core fears:

1. Fear of not being loved/accepted

2. Fear of not being enough

For me, the former manifests in trying not to rock the boat, trying to be strong and not show emotions, taking care of everyone but feeling guilty for having my own needs and desires. A sense of isolation and being separate or different.

The second manifests in crippling perfectionism and overwhelm paralysis, feeling like I will never be able to fulfill my potential. Like I’m always failing to reach my own expectations. A sense of anxiety and lack.

I sent a poll out to my Courageously Authentic Women in Biz community and they responded with similar fears too, which I could easily trace back to the core two fears of not being loved, not being enough, or a little of both.

Do any of these sound familiar to you?

I AM NOT LOVED (fear of rejection) … this could also be the flip of not enough: being TOO MUCH.

• What people will think?

• I’ll fail and push people away.

• Being open and vulnerable will lead to being misunderstood or judged.

• What if no one else will want to join me?

• Fear of judgment or rejection.

• Fear of success!

I AM NOT ENOUGH

• I will never attract paying clients.

• I feel incapable and unworthy.

• I’m afraid of failing.

• I’m afraid of not being enough.

• I don’t have a unique experience to connect with others.

• Who am I to be a (insert your type of business here)?

• I’ll never be successful because I’m not a high performer.

• If I put time and effort into something and fail, I’ll have wasted that time and energy.

• I’m not cool/popular/extroverted enough to really build this into a sustainable, flourishing business or put the effort in to keep it there

• If I need to take time to recharge and unplug for a few days, people will lose interest so I just have to push through even when my body/soul are screaming for rest.

• I am afraid of not having enough time to achieve everything I want, both in business and in life. I have all these great things I want to do, but I don’t have the time to get to them and in turn I won’t be as successful as I feel I can be...

• Fear of not finishing what I started and dreamed of.

• Not having enough time to build a business while raising children, and having to sacrifice time with kids and partner. Will it all be worth it?

The crazy thing is that we are all the same. We all struggle with different flavors of the same fundamental “stuff” of being human.

When we get out of our heads, and realize that we aren’t alone, the fear starts to dissipate!

This is why I freaking LOVE being a life coach.

Because you can do all the personal development. Go to all the motivational seminars.

But sometimes we need someone else to guide us through the actual work of processing and releasing our fears and doubts, to guide us back to our truth and reflect back what we can’t yet see in ourselves - how powerful and whole and lovable we really are already.

This is why I’ve created a new 3 part mindset training, jamming on some of the most common fears that limit female entrepreneurs from reaching our full potential, as well as a secret to “manifesting” our dreams that I haven’t seen anyone else in the world talk about yet.

I’m calling it LET IT HAPPEN - get out of your head and create an inspired business.

Let’s stop trying to force or push through... and surrender to what feels easy.

We are going deep, we are doing the work, we are going to make some major shifts together!

xo Anna

Let it be easy and fun

WHAT’S UP MY FRIENNNNNDS!

Happy freaking December! Winter has officially arrived here in Chiberia, our little Christmas tree is twinkling (even if we haven't put the ornaments up yet), and I'm trying to be present and enjoy every last bit of 2017 and the holiday season.

It's been a while since I wrote a blog post. Where have I been?

Leveling UP.

This is going to be more of a "personal update" post as I catch you up to speed on the top life lessons I learned in November. It was a crazy expansive month, and I've never felt this connected to myself, empowered, and confident.

As soon as November arrived, it's like I saw the end of the year coming and all of a sudden a fire lit and I woke up from my cozy comfy 10 months of 2017 "flow" and realized there were still a lot of projects and things I wanted to accomplish and finish before the calendar flips to a fresh year, and I couldn't keep holding myself back for one more second!

So I burned the boats, joined a group mastermind, invested in a high end business/life coach, raised my rates to be in alignment with the value and transformation I facilitate for my coaching clients, decided to stop playing small and over-thinking my life, created and shared my new powerful vision for my health coaching team, did a mini cleanse to kick my sugar addiction and re-calibrate my energy, started waking up at 5:30 to prioritize my self care, and had about a bajillion breakthroughs and mindset shifts.

Oh, and I chopped my work hours (bye bye "busy work") and still ended up making more money in November than I've ever made in a single month in my entire life.

WAAAA told you it was a big month.

I've been learning that our external "success" is proportional to our level of inner growth and personal development, which is why it’s so important as creative entrepreneurs to prioritize the deeper inner work it takes to get clear on our mission, vision, WHY, and work through all the fears and limiting beliefs that hold us back from taking action and growing into our goals and dreams.

I feel like God/the Universe is always sending us messages and signs through the universe that point us back to where we need to be and what we need to remember.

One of my favorite parts of life coaching is when my clients unconsciously mirror back a message or insight that's deep inside myself too. In the process of holding a safe and sacred space for them to meet themselves where they're at, figure out how they want to feel inside their vision, unravel what's blocking them from moving forward,  sometimes it feels like I'm actually coaching myself too and guiding us both into action.

And pretty much all my coaching calls and conversations this week have been pointing me back towards two main messages:

1. Let it be easy

2. Trust yourself

LET IT BE EASY. Because I’m done with making life and business hard and complicated. 

I’m releasing the belief that money and success are a product of sacrifice and hard work.

I’m not afraid of deep, soul work. Easy doesn't mean effortless. But it CAN feel aligned.

Easy doesn't always mean comfortable. But like a hard workout, it's exhilarating.

And TRUST. Ohhhhh trust.

At the beginning of 2017 I chose “open hearted” to be my word of the year and it was a great guide for several months but TRUST is what I keep coming back to again and again in my journal and conversations.

The biggest lesson I’m working on right now is to trust that everything I desire is coming my way. To trust that I’m enough right here, right now. To trust that I’ll grow into my goals and vision as I go...but I’m safe to take action from where I’m at right now.

I can be a control freak and perfectionist, which combined with my background in science and tangible results makes it really hard for me to feel happy and successful if I can't SEE things happening.

That's why trust is so important. Even though I can’t see all the tangible results I desire yet, I can trust the inner change, trust in a higher power, and trust the transformation that’s already happening inside of my mind and heart and energy.

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So I'll leave you with a couple questions to reflect on:

Where can you let it be easy?

Where can you release your tight grip on control and surrender to trust?

xo Anna

p.s. I have two spaces open for life coaching in December! If you're a visionary, ambitious, high performing, multi-passionate creative entrepreneur or simply someone who feels called to forge your own path and you'd like some support in taking your happiness and biz to the next level, click here to book a complimentary 30 minute call!