A New Approach to Setting Business Goals: Focusing on the Joy

I’ve spent the last couple weeks talking with clients in my membership about joy and filling out their JOY trackers. What is a JOY tracker you ask? Well, it’s my new approach to how the DCM community sets their goals:

By focusing on the joy!

Then turning that joy into goals, fulfilling work and, of course, profit.

Joy → Goals → Fulfilling work → Profitability

Let me break down this process.

Why Joy Matters in Business

It’s so easy as an entrepreneur to get focused on the doing of the business that the original spark of joy and passion we had for creating the business can get lost. But why have your business if it’s not bringing you joy?

If happiness in your professional life doesn’t matter, it makes more sense to work for someone else and pass the buck on the admin, HR and financial aspects that make being a business owner tough.

So assuming you don’t want to go back in-house, the end of the year is a good time to pause for a minute and reflect on what brought you JOY in your business before you worry about setting annual goals for 2024.

Questions to consider:

1. What did you LOVE working on in your business this year?

2. What do you miss doing that you used to do at the start of the business?

3. What products/services make you the happiest to fulfill?

4. What do you like doing that is not (yet) profitable?

5. Why did you decide to start this particular business? Is that still your core passion?

If so, how can you do more of it? If not, what has changed?

Now go one step further…

I’m betting one of the answers to question 5 is that you wanted to have more control over your life.

Well, let’s talk about that then. Take those same questions and apply them to your outside-of-work life.

Once we know what truly brings you joy both in and outside of work you can design your business to fit into the life you want.

Creating Fulfilling & Profitable Work

Now that you’ve clarified what you LOVE to do in your business and life, you can start setting goals to make those things a reality.

Example:

I LOVE to write. At my core, I identify as a writer. However, earlier this year I found myself writing less and less each month, which left me feeling creatively unfulfilled.

So, I set a goal to fix that:

Write everyday.

It didn’t matter what I wrote (article, email campaign, social post), only that I wrote something every single day.

Guess what? That soon translated to writing:

– A weekly article for the DCM blog
– Near-daily Instagram posts (business & personal)

*NOTE: both of these accounts have grown consistently as a result of this strategy

– Weekly email campaigns for the DCM community

Then the profitable part came in.

Why It Works

Because I got into a rhythm and focused on what truly brings me JOY in my business, I started getting hired for those services more.

The requests started flowing in for content marketing consulting (tutorials & writing), blogging, editing, and teaching others how to be a better writer.

Joy → Goals → Fulfilling work → Profitability

By focusing FIRST on what brought me joy in business, I have been able to adjust my course to turn that into achievable goals and fulfilling and profitable work.

Now, does that sound appealing to you?

Then start with the exercise above to find YOUR joy, then let’s chat about how to turn that joy into clear goals and profitability in 2024.