I spent SO much time planning, reading, revising, and re-revising these goals. It was important to me that these were MY goals, and weren’t influenced by what other people were doing or trying to achieve. Or even what I felt people expected from me.

But now that they’re complete, I honestly couldn’t be more excited to trudge forward this year in making them happen.

Here’s what I’m working toward in 2017…

Business Goals

1. Help 3 million people

This feels like an insane-in-the-membrane number to share, which makes me feel a little squeamish, honestly.

But instead of just tallying up all of my “followers” or some silly metric, I thought it would be more fun and meaningful to actually pay attention to how DEEPLY I’m helping these people, too. Because I know it’s not realistic that I’m going to have deep, face-to-face conversations with 3 million people this year.

(Though that sounds wonderful and I wish it were possible!).

So, instead, I’m dividing up those 3 million people into three leagues.

The League of Strangers I Helped in Some Small Way: These are essentially people who view my blog posts or watch my YouTube videos. They can certainly be helped in a big way by even just reading one post, but they’re not engaged members of my community…yet. (We’ll call this “Group 1”).

The League of Community Members in My Tribe: These are specifically people on my email list, in my Facebook group, or who are part of my social media communities. They’re people who have raised their hand to being part of my tribe, and therefore people I get to interact with and help on a deeper scale. (We’ll call this “Group 2”).

The League of Biggest Impact: Finally, these are people who have joined my courses, attended any of my in-person meetups, or benefitted from any philanthropic donations my company makes. I’m assuming that I can have the biggest impact on people in one of these arenas, which is why they’re in this group. (We’ll call this “Group 3”).

Obviously, as you move up the scale, the number of people I am able to help will be less and less. So, here’s what I’m thinking in order to hit my 2017 goal and help 3 million people:

• Group 1: 2.5 million people
• Group 2: 480,000 people
• Group 3: 20,000 people

Honestly, this one will be hard to track and there will certainly be people who will slip through the cracks — realistically, relationships can’t be quantified!

But I still want to put it out into the universe because I want this goal and number to always be in the back of my mind.

In 2016, I calculated that I had helped aroooound 1.8 million people between my email list, social media, students I taught, and number of unique website visitors. Of course, there is some overlap, but it’s tough to figure out exactly how much, so I just added them all separately.

How will I help 3 million people this year? Here’s the gameplan:

• Focus more on philanthropic programs and fundraisers
• Ramp up my YouTube channel (or podcast? see below).
• Increase my website traffic and visitors by 10-20%
• Triple the number of customers I had in 2016
• Double my email list to at least 200,000 people, and continue to grow my Facebook community

To keep me on track, I’m going to add this as a section in my monthly income reports, so that you can follow along with this “help 3 million people” goal, too. 🙂

I used to only set “revenue” goals, without really considering how many people I’d be helping by hitting that income level. Of course, helping people has always been one of my biggest drivers, but it’s so much easier to say “I want to make $X dollars” vs “I want to help X people.”

I know that shifting my mindset and focus to helping more people will not only grow my revenue, but also my purpose.

Now that we’re talking about revenue…

2. Hit 3 million in revenue

3 million is the number of year apparently, folks! 

There’s definitely some fear involved with sharing such a big number, but I know that regardless of whether I hit this goal or not, setting something “big” will push me further than if I had set a smaller goal I knew I could hit.

Phew. 

In 2016, my business brought in $1.35 million, so hitting $3 million will be a little more than double. That may seem like a big leap, but after spending a lot of time planning my entire year based on launches, conversion rates, attrition, email list size, and various income streams, it seems totally doable.

Actually, based on my projections, the number we should hit is roughly $2.7 million. But I added an extra $300,000 to my goal to make things interesting. 😉

Also, I had a good time re-reading this “Yearly Goals” post I wrote at the start of 2015, two years ago.

In it, I mention some goals that remind me how far my business has come in the past two years. Like the fact that my business barely broke $50,000 in 2014 (I think I made about $60k) and that one of my 2015 goals was to get 50 students in a new e-course I was creating (my courses now have over 5,000 students).

If you don’t write your goals down each year, I recommend it. Looking back and seeing your progress over the years is so motivating, man.

3. Publish at least 25 YouTube videos (or podcast episodes?!)

I’ve been struggling with weekly content lately. I think this has honestly been one of the toughest things about my business’s growth spurt — it’s just made it harder to find time to write in-depth blog posts each week…and to have the passion and energy to do so.

In 2017, I’m going to try shifting my focus to YouTube videos and see how that feels, both for me and for you. Though, I’ve recently had a bunch of people randomly tell me I should create a podcast.

So…who knows which one will stick. 🙂

Personal Goals

1. My Year of Self Development

At least, that’s what I’ve deemed 2017. 🙂

Self-development has always been important to me (it’s the topic I started my website on, actually), but over the past year, I don’t feel I’ve done enough to “become my best self.”

Something inside of me is shifting, and I feel like I’m coming into more and more of who I am. I like this person — she is loving, empathetic, confident, and cares more about community and relationships than being someone’s “guru.”

It’s a beautiful and freeing feeling to see those shifts taking place, but I want to put in the effort to understand the negative thought patterns I’ve had since childhood, to become a better CEO, to create stronger relationships, and to be the most kind, loving, and self aware version of me possible.

I just want to be able to look back and KNOW that I was living at my highest potential and creating space for wonderful things to happen.

I also recently ended a long-term relationship I was in (we’re still good friends and it was for the best for each of us, don’t worry!), but watching that relationship end has put me into a frame of mind I haven’t felt in awhile, one that feels like change and growth and potential. It’s exciting.

One of the ways that I’m making sure I focus on self-development is giving myself a $10,000 personal growth stipend this year. Basically, $10k that I HAVE to use by the end of 2017 on things that will help me grow as a person.

It could go toward things like…

• Books
• Conferences or workshops
• Therapy or EFT sessions
• Something that pushes me out of my comfort zone and helps me grow

I thought it would be fun to document my Personal Growth Spendings throughout the year, to let you know what I’ve invested in and how it’s helped me. I’ll include that as a section in my monthly income reports for 2017. 🙂

And just a note: this stipend and goal is not related to my business, so I’m not including conferences or books that are specifically geared toward helping me as a business owner. I’m ONLY counting books/workshops/etc that are meant to help me grow as a person (which will still obviously help my business, but you get the picture). 🙂

2. Create stronger daily habits

I recently joined a business mastermind led by Lewis Howes, and in our first coaching call together, we talked about exercise. Specifically, that it’s impossible for your mind and body to function at 100% when you don’t exercise.

And friends?

I spent 2016 being SUPER sedentary. I’m honestly not sure that I exercised once?

And I think part of that led to me feeling like things were becoming routine and having a lack of creativity throughout the year.

So, as a challenge, Lewis told me to start exercising 5 days a week, which sounded absurd to someone who could barely climb a flight of stairs without feeling out of breath, but I was up for the challenge. 😉

And exercise, I have!

That conversation was a couple weeks ago, but I’ve exercised 5 days a week since then. My favorite way to move my body is by going to spin classes.

I’d never taken a spin class before (and had to read ALL the Google articles about spin classes beforehand, just to ensure that I wouldn’t pass out or die from exhaustion ;)), but they have actually been SO fun and motivating.

And I’m changing as a person, too. It’s amazing how much a tough workout can toughen up your mind and empower you in all aspects of your life.

Here are some other “stronger daily habits” that I plan to incorporate, little by little, this year:

• Exercise 5 days a week (I’m mainly doing spin and yoga classes right now, but would like to get into dance classes, too!).
• Meditate for 10-20 minutes when I wake up and before bed.
• Read everyday (perhaps as a nightly before-bed routine). I’d like to read at least 25 books this year.
• Journal more often (at least once a week).
• Get back into cooking, or at the very least, eating healthier. I used to eat super healthy — mainly paleo/vegan. But this year, my diet took a nosedive. I’m going to start getting healthy meals delivered, so we’ll see how that goes, but I also wouldn’t mind getting back into cooking my own healthy meals. 🙂 I especially loved cooking paleo/vegan meals, as you have to make a lot of sauces from scratch. It was fun to do, and also nice to know exactly what you’re eating.

Overall, I can’t wait to see how this year unfolds, both from a business and personal perspective. I feel like I’m really hitting my stride as a business owner and also living my life with more purpose and love.

Cheers to whatever the future holds, and to knowing that no matter what 2017 brings, we will be better off from the growth and lessons that occur. <3

What are your goals or priorities for the year?