How To Set Monthly Goals For Long-Term Business Success

Let’s talk goal setting for business success, more specifically how to set monthly business goals and achieve them.

I’m a firm believer in effective goal setting in business and my personal life.  It gives you a clear focus so that you know exactly what to work on.

Also, from a law of attraction point of view, what you focus your attention on, you attract.  Now there’s a bit more to it than that, but having a clear focus through goal setting is a great start.

For more on using the law of attraction in your business read 5 steps to get the law of attraction working in your business.

Monthly Goal Setting For Business Success

I’ve got 3 key steps for you to set monthly business goals effectively and consistently and then I’ll share some extra tips that will help you achieve your goals.

1. Start with the big picture

If you just set monthly goals that don’t tie into bigger goals, you’ll probably find that you’re busy but not moving forward in your business.

I encourage you to get super clear about your ideal business long term.  Download your free copy of the Ideal Business Workbook – Print it out and work through the whole workbook.  This will give you real long-term clarity and focus.

Once you’ve done this, write a checklist in a dedicated planner – What would you need to have achieved to have your ideal business?

To do: Download, print off and complete the Ideal Business Workbook then create an ideal business checklist.

2. Break your long-term goals down into smaller, monthly goals

Take your ideal business checklist (the things you need to achieve to have your ideal business), look at each goal individually and break it down to create smaller goals that you can work on or achieve this month.

Example 1

On Sarah’s Ideal Business checklist, one of her long-term goals is to have a published book in her niche business.

This is a dream Sarah has had for a long time and now she’s creating smaller goals to achieve this particular goal.

Her monthly business goal based on this particular long-term goal is to plan out the entire book with key notes for each section of the book.

Example 2

Jessica has a long-term goal to create an online course serving over 1 million people.  Her monthly business goals might look something like this.

• Decide on the platform the course will be published – research different services and how the course would need to be created.
• Plan out the entire course following a logical pattern
• Let’s say the course will have 10 units in total.  Depending on the depth of each unit, Jessica’s monthly business goals could be to complete 2 units.

To do: Look at each of your long-term business goals and create a smaller monthly business goal. 

Extra note: You don’t need to work on every long-term goal each month.  Choose the goals you want to work on and keep going until complete.

3. Prioritize your monthly business goals

Let’s face it we all have loads of things to do in our business and personal life on a daily basis.  What I encourage you to do is prioritize.

• Start off by prioritizing which long-term goals you currently want to work on
• Create your monthly goals (that will move you closer to achieving your long-term goals) and decide which of these goals are the most important.  Make these a priority
• Each business day, prioritize your most important goals

Example of monthly goal setting for business success

Jane has 10 long-term goals (ideal business goals) and she has decided on 3 goals to work on this month.

From the 3 main long-term business goals she’s chosen to work on, Jane has created 7 monthly business goals.

She then gives each goal a priority number from 1-7 (1 being the most important goal).

Jane now knows that whilst she wants to work on all of these goals, she will prioritize her time on each goal in order of importance.

To do: Decide on your priority long-term goals that you want to work on, create your monthly business goals and then give each of your monthly business goals a priority number.

Tips to help you achieve your goals

Goal setting is fantastic but it’s no good setting your goals and then not achieving them.  So here are my top tips to actually achieve your goals.

1. Take action every business day

I know this sounds so obvious, but it’s worth saying anyway.  If we want to achieve our goals, then we must take action consistently.  It’s really easy to be busy during your business work time but not be working on any of your monthly business goals.

2. Keep your goals simple (that doesn’t mean you need to think small)

People often over-complicate their goals and then end up dropping their goals because they feel too overwhelmed.

You can have the biggest goal in the world and still keep it simple.

Breaking your goals down into smaller and smaller goals really helps with this.

3. Don’t set yourself too many goals

Again, one of the big reasons that people don’t achieve their goals is that they set themselves too many goals and get totally overwhelmed.

I advise you not to go mad when setting your goals so that you’ve got 5 pages of goals for the month.  Instead, aim for maybe around 7-10 key Monthly goals.  Each business will be different.  I personally don’t like to have more than 5 and usually go for 3 key goals maximum.

Remember that from your key monthly goal, you can break those goals down into smaller goals on a weekly/daily basis.

Also, remember to prioritize your most important goals.

4. Your to-do list is not your goals list

Your monthly business goals are not the same as your to-do list.

Some days I have a whole page of to-do items, such as pick my son up 4.30pm, post to Morning Business Chat Facebook group, check messages from course students, promote a blog post, schedule posts to Pinterest, Lunch, put the washing out, check parent pay, walk the dog, go swimming…

These things are important and some things are a high priority, such as picking my son up but they’re not my goals, they’re just daily tasks.

Make sure that you that once you’ve slotted in your time-specific high priority tasks, your next step is to work on your priority goals.

A final note on prioritizing your most important monthly business goals

Deciding on which of your goals are the most important is incredibly powerful.  If for any reason you end up not completing all of your monthly business goals, if you’ve prioritized then you will have made good progress in the most important areas.

Monthly Goal Setting For Business Success – Recap

• Download the Ideal Business Workbook – Print out and complete
• Make an Ideal Business goals checklist
• Using your long-term goals, create your monthly business goals
• Prioritize your most important goals
• Take action every business day to move you closer to achieving your monthly business goals
• Keep your goals simple
• Don’t set too many key monthly business goals
• Remember that your to-do list is not your goals list.  Make sure you schedule in time to work on your goals.

As always I wish you every success in your business and with achieving your monthly business goals.  I’ve written a lot on how to achieve your goals on the blog, so take a look at those posts too.

Key posts to read…

Daily Goal Setting – Alongside your to-do list.

How to set and achieve your weekly goals You’ll need this after creating your monthly goals

Simplicity Goal Setting – In a busy and overwhelming world, let’s do simplicity

Best wishes with all your goals.

Wendy xx

P.S. For even more focus and help to create the business you really want with the help of the law of attraction, come along and download the LOA Business Planning pack.  

Pin the image below so that you can come back for a refresher each month.