The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 52. Goal Setting for the New Year

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

On today’s episode we are talking with you about goal setting for 2023.Whether you are an experienced blogger or brand new, we believe that goal setting is so important for your blogging business. Tune in to hear more tips and tricks to start 2023 off right!Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsCheck out The Blog Depot. This is a community and course that we have set up for you if you need questions answered before you start your blog. Join the waitlist for The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp, our online course and coaching that helps you build the blog that you have always dreamed of.SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode52

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. We are coming up to the end of the year, which is so fun to think about how another year has passed and we can reflect upon that and how a new year is going to let us start fresh. Now, Amy and I always say you should never just wait for the new year before you start something you want to start. So I want to say that first and foremost. But what we do believe is that the change of the year is a great time for reflection and goal setting.

That's why today we want to talk about goal setting for 2023. So like I said, we set goals year round. I think new things come up that we haven't thought of. Information changes, something new takes place, a new platform is available. So you have to be flexible always. But what we want to talk about today is sitting down, being intentional, and taking some time to think about as a blogger, what do you want 2023 to look like? And how can you set some goals so that you can feel good about what you achieve in this next year? So first we want to say, don't make this a big stressful thing. I think it can be very overwhelming to sit down and write out goals,

to think about goals or to commit yourself to goals, but find a way to make this fun. Amy was just talking about like, you know, get a favorite coffee or get a cozy spot where you can sit down with a quiet space to like sit and think. And so make this something that you look forward to doing. And also when you think about setting goals, do it in a way that works for you. We're going to give you some tips and some advice and some examples, but the most important thing is that you do this in a way that works for you. You don't have to have a big fancy spreadsheet or anything like that. If you don't want to. Whatever you can stick to, whatever will work for you, whatever feels comfortable, that's where you should start.

And there's really no wrong or right way to set goals. We just want you to do it. It's important to be intentional and to think about what you want your year to look like next year. Yeah. about what you want your year to look like next year. Yeah. And I think something to consider too is this can be fun and it can be exciting to do this, to reflect. For many years, Jennifer and I have sat down at the end of the year and kind of reflected. We typically do it around Christmas or New Year's. It's actually usually right around New Year's. We've been known to do it on New

Year's Eve before. And sit down and think about things. Where have things been? What did we accomplish this year? And we did this actually together for the first time prior to ever even owning Spark Media. I believe I did it with her when I just worked for Jennifer, honestly. So whether or not you have a business like we do with Spark or whether you're a new blogger or you're blogging and maybe you have somebody helping you, it's okay to bring those people in too and reflect on what worked this year and what didn't and using that information to move forward into the next year. I just think it's such an inspiring time to sit down and ask yourself, what can this new year hold? What is on the horizon here? And to go into the new year with that excitement is so important, I think, because it sets us up right away with this intention of growth. And no matter what goals you set, likely growth is going to be the driving force behind it. And so whether that's growth for finances, whether that's growth for traffic, maybe that's

just internal growth and things that you want to learn. There's lots of different ways that you can set goals, but a lot of it does have to surround around growth. So we want to talk about why it is important to set goals as a blogger. And I know when you're new, and I know that there's a lot of new bloggers listening, it can seem more difficult to set goals as a blogger. And I know when you're new, and I know that there's a lot of new bloggers listening, it can seem more difficult to set goals. But I want you just to get in this habit from the start. And I think the most important piece of this is because the studies have shown that 69% of people who set goals are more successful. And I believe the

reason why that is, is because of the intention behind it. When you sit down to work on content or you sit down to engage or do a collaboration or have an idea that you want to explore, you have an intention behind it. There's a reason why you're doing it. You're not just like throwing spaghetti noodles up on the wall and saying, Ooh, I hope that sticks. Like there's actually a reason that is a driving force behind you making the choices that you're making. And so think about that. What is your intention? behind you making the choices that you're making.

And so think about that. What is your intention? Whether you are a new or experienced blogger, make sure that you know your intention behind setting some of these goals. And that is why it is so important. Take the time to be specific and really think about what you want. When you are more specific with your goals, when they are clearly broken down and you have an actionable path, actionable steps to achieve, you're going to be more successful because you have a plan.

You're going to hear us say that I think probably more than once in this podcast episode, but having a plan is important. And okay, I hear you if right now you're like, I don't like a plan. Planning feels icky and planning is not like my normal go-to. Take it from somebody who feels that exact same way sometimes. I promise you, if you have a plan, it will actually feel much less stressful. It will actually give you direction. It will actually allow you to grow. Please don't be afraid of structure and a little bit of intention, because I truly think a lot of times we tell ourselves, well, I don't like to make a plan and I actually don't like structure. I like to fly by the seat of my pants. I love that feeling.

But really ask yourself, is that serving you? If you've been blogging for several years and you're not finding growth, ask yourself, is that how you're handling it? If it is and you're not finding success, then I'm just going to challenge you to do it a different way next year. And I want you to check in. I want you to tell us how it helped if you decide to kind of step out of your comfort zone and think about an intentional goal that you can set and some actionable and achievable steps

that you can do to do it. So also taking the time to document and do this, I think is important. I realize it takes time to sit down and think about your goals, but you are worthy of that. So take the time. We generally, when we sit down, Jennifer and I spend a couple hours. I mean, it's generally, we have gone to a coffee shop. We have talked about it.

She's talked about her goals. I've talked about mine. We've talked about sparks together. Like what we want, what do we want out of this business? And take the time to do that. Allow yourself that time. You deserve it. You deserve the time to make sure that what you're doing with your blog is actually aligning with what you want in your life. So this is why finding accountability can also be really helpful. Truthfully, sometimes I find it like we're

incredibly lucky. And I recognize that, that we just happen to be next door neighbors who now have turned into bloggers ourselves and we're business owners together. But I promise you, there are people that would be willing to network and collaborate with you and communicate with you. It does not need to be your next door neighbor, truly. But I'm sitting here thinking, if you just talk to people, like people are genuinely interested in collaborating and like finding people who are doing similar things that they're doing.

It's one of the reasons that we created the Spark Media Concepts community is because we wanted people to have that ability to network with people who are doing what they're doing. You don't meet bloggers every day the way you meet a teacher or you meet somebody who works at a bank or something like that. They are a bit few and far between. And that's okay. That's amazing. That's the amazing thing about blogging is not everybody's doing it. And it's this very creative path that so many of us who do it absolutely love. But that also means that you have to get creative with how you're going to find accountability. And it might not be the easiest person you can think of. It might mean that you need to step out of your comfort zone and find somebody who can hold

you accountable with these goals. And to create that friendship with somebody that is going to hold you accountable, that's going to push you, that's going to excite you. You can do that in a number of different ways by joining Facebook groups with bloggers and connecting with them there. If you haven't started your blog yet and you're wanting to, joining one of our communities is a great way to do that. You can start with the Blog Depot community and that is a great way to just meet people right out of the gate. And then the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp is a fantastic way because you get to meet people with our office hours and things like that. And then we have other opportunities for people to connect things like that. And then we have other opportunities for people to connect and stay connected. And so I just want you to know

that that is possible to connect with those people. There's other courses that you can take to learn. I know that that's how several of our students have met other people. They've gone to conferences, they've done courses and things that you can find that accountability that really can make all the difference in regards to your success. Because one of the biggest, I think, setbacks with people being unable to move forward is accountability. And it's also that feeling of like, am I doing this all alone? And just knowing that you're not alone in this business.

You're not the only one who's sitting behind your computer screen and praying that people come to your website and actually get joy and value out of the content that you're creating. You're not the only one in the world doing it. There are a lot of us out there doing it. There are a lot of us who sit behind our computer screens every day and ask ourselves, how can I make an impact? How am I making an impact? How am I adding value?

And so know that your community is there. So don't let that fear of either setting goals or finding a community or knowing your worth or knowing your value, don't let that hold you back. It might be uncomfortable. This is an area of growth. This alone could be a goal, just finding a community in 2023. I promise when you practice that, when you continue to put yourself out there and when you allow fear to take a backseat and instead you say, hey fear, I'm in charge and this year is going to be my year. I am done letting fear hold me back from the things that I know I'm capable of, the things that I know I'm worthy of achieving and impacting the people that I know could desperately use my help. So let's take that into the rest of this podcast episode. And Jennifer's

going to tell us about some of the things you might want to think about before you set your goals. Yeah. So hopefully by now you're like, okay, I can sit in the uncomfortable. I can push myself. I can just try. I can do it imperfectly. I will at least sit down and make some goals for myself. But before you do that, I think there's a few important considerations that we want you to mull over for the next week or two before you really put pencil to paper and actually write out your goals. And this one is tricky and it's taken me a long time. And I think I still have a long way to go, but defining what success actually means, because I think success is different to every single person. And if you're hanging out in many blogging communities, you might start looking at what other people are doing or how much money

they say they're making or how many followers they have on Instagram, all of that. That's all the comparison stuff. But really what you need to do is define what success means to you. So maybe that is a financial goal. Maybe you need to bring in some income for your household. But maybe there's other reasons that you are wanting to start a blog. Maybe you just really have a passion for sharing your topic and you really want to reach people out there and let them know about what it is you're sharing. Maybe you want to have more time. So you're going to start blogging so that you have more control over your time, so that you're not

reporting to somebody else, etc. So you really want to create your own business or side hustle or whatever, just so you have more control over your time. Maybe you are doing something right now that's super stressful. So you want to do something that feels more meaningful to you. So maybe blogging would be meaningful to you in some way. Maybe you'd like to learn new things. I know that's one of the things that I like to do. I set a goal that I didn't quite meet this year, but I sure did try. I like to take online courses or do research and teach myself new things all the time. So maybe that's part of it. Maybe you want to learn something new about the online world or blogging, etc. Maybe there's just

other things you want to achieve. Maybe you want to meet more people. Maybe you want to collaborate on projects. There are just so many things you can think about in terms of what your goals actually are. Do I want to blog so that I can surround myself with a community of people that has similar interests or values to me? Do I want to blog because I just love it so much and I want to share this joy with the world? There's so many reasons you can blog. And so you want to really take those into account when you set your goals. So think about for yourself, what would success mean to me? Would it mean that I got to be available whenever my kids needed me? I can pick them up after school. I don't ever have to say like, no, I have to work. I mean, there's so many ways to look at this. So really think about what is important to you. And some of those may

be financial goals. So if you do need to make or want to make some money, don't just set an arbitrary number. Now, this is going to be harder to predict if you're a newer blogger. And we'll talk about that a little bit. But the first one or two years, you're not going to necessarily have a grasp on what's possible for you and your niche because there's so many factors that go into it. But that doesn't mean you can't set some sort of a goal. And if you've been blogging for a few years, you're going to have more information. You're going to be able to work on setting a goal. But really where you want to start is not just setting like, oh, I want to have a 10K month or all these things that you

hear when you listen to podcasts or you hear people presenting on webinars and they make all these promises. Ignore that. Sit down and say, okay, what do I need to make for me? What are my own goals? Do I need money to pay my bills? Do I want to set aside a college fund? Do I want a savings for a vacation home? There's a million different things that could be important to you. So only you know what that looks like. So set a goal. Obviously, you have a dream goal, but like then take a look at that and say, okay, but what's, what do I need right now? And can I set a goal that makes sense for right now in my life that will make me feel like I've achieved something.

And that's really the whole idea. So just be really mindful of what kind of goals you want to set in this first year. Do you want to start a blog, but you aren't sure what to do first? Are you still wondering what you're going to write about and who your ideal reader is? Have you researched blog platforms only to be left with even more questions and have a no idea what platform to build your blog on? Guess what? We created the blog Depot just for you. The blog Depot is a nine module course that was designed for someone who thinks that they want to start a blog, but wants to build a solid foundation and ask themselves the important questions before

jumping in. In the blog Depot, we will help you understand what you need to build a successful blog and important questions to ask yourself. And we do it all with our self-paced online course and membership community. You get access to the course and community forum immediately upon signup. And as a special bonus, we do a live coaching call with Depot members every month. So you can talk to us about your specific questions and needs. We want you to feel confident when you decide to finally start blogging someday and the blog depot will help you do it. It's only $47 a month, but if you sign up today and use code UBP50, you'll receive 50% off your first month. The link to join us is in the show notes, and we can't wait to help you build your solid foundation in the blog depot. Depot. We're going to talk about this more, but something that we want to encourage you as you're sitting here kind of thinking about some goals that you might be having is while setting goals is a great idea, setting too many goals can actually set you up for failure. So be mindful

of that as you're kind of going through this. And as we're talking about goal setting, you don't need to set like 20 goals. You know, it's not like the more goals you have, the better off it's going to be. And so we're going to kind of dive into that a little bit. So what are some guidelines that we would recommend for you with goal setting? And first and foremost, you want to make sure that they're set high enough that they're actually challenging and that you're going to be super proud of yourself when you hit them, but not so high that you are feeling this intense amount of pressure all year long or all month long that there's no way you're going to hit the goal. So a really challenging goal can feel exciting, but don't make it so challenging that it's impossible. And know the difference. Know what is worth it. Is the success

worth it or the stress or what have you? Think about that. Is the amount of stress that you would put yourself under in order to achieve that goal actually worth the outcome? Just learning what I'm learning in my own health journey, I'm going to tell you, Jennifer's laughing, going under an intense amount of stress likely is not going to give you the result that you want because it's going to lead to burnout and a number of other things. So I want you to ask yourself, what are the things that I want to do in my life? What do I want out of my blogging business? What am I willing to sacrifice? What am I willing to do? And then create your goal there. There is like, if you, if you think about like a diagram there,

that can all meet in the middle there. You can have all the things, but it means that at some point, some things have to go. Like I've talked before, like I don't necessarily believe in balance, like 50-50 or whatever. I think sometimes things have to take the forefront. And so it might mean like if 2023 is a year that you really want to focus on your blog, that takes the forefront. And some other things might have to kind of like slide to the back burner a little bit. And if that can't be your goal in 2023, if you're like going through like major life changes and your blog cannot be your

number one goal, here's the other thing. You don't have to totally give up. Like you don't have to say, well, I don't have time to blog at all. And so I'm just going to hang it up for the entire year. You can still stay relevant in some way. Blogging does not have to be all or nothing the same way that everything else in our life doesn't need to be all or nothing. Be realistic with that. Be realistic with the challenge that you're setting yourself up for in regards to the goals that you're thinking about.

Don't set too many at once because that's just going to make you crazy and it's going to spread you too thin and you're not going to enjoy the process anyway. And I think something I want you to also keep in mind, as Jennifer was talking earlier, something that kept coming to me was blogging should also be fun. Truly. We can all stop blogging and have more time. Those of us who do this as a full-time job could stop blogging today and go work for somebody else. Blogging is a choice that a lot of us have made in order to have a creative career and in order to have fun. Like I know I have a ton of fun doing this. I love what I do. If you're not having fun, I'm going to ask yourself to go back to the drawing board

and ask yourself, how can I make this more fun? How can I make this enjoyable? Because it truly should be enjoyable. And as you're thinking about these goals that you're setting, ask yourself, what are my long-term goals? So let's think like a five-year plan. Where do you want to be in five years? What's your big kind of scary goal that you're thinking about in five years that you're like, if I did that, I would

be so damn proud of myself if I actually achieved that. And I know if I do X, Y, Z over the next five years, I can do it. Write it down. Like truly write it down. You don't have to show anybody. Like you don't need to tell anybody that, that you want to do that. So one of my goals, I can't believe I'm going to say this out loud. One of my goals is when I take my daughter to kindergarten, I do not want to drop her off in my minivan. I will have driven a minivan for like 12 years by that point. And honestly, I'm just kind of over it. Minivans are wonderful and fantastic and all those things, but I'm just kind of over the minivan. And I want to have

like a larger SUV, like an extended cab SUV is what I want. And I don't want to have a car payment for it. I want to use my money that I have earned in my business, not my husband's money that he's earning and bringing home for our family to live on, but my money to buy that car. And that's my goal. And I'm like, I'm not buying that car until I can do that. And so that's the goal. That's the goal that I just shared with all of you. And now I'm like, oh crap, now I have to actually do the goal. Don't you guys worry. You guys don't have to go live on a podcast and declare your goals to the world like amy just did If you want to you can Yeah, you do not because now i'm like, oh crap

I've just shared that with everybody and now people are going to ask me how my goal is going But that to be honest, that's just an example like that is my big scary goal There are days i'm like i'm not sure that's even possible Like I don't know honestly there are days I have that feeling a little but man, I'm working hard to see if I can make that happen because that is something that I want. I mean, your goal doesn't have to, it can be whatever you want it to be. There are no guidelines for what your goal needs to be. It can be a traffic goal to your website. It can be a financial goal. It can be a time goal. It can be a schedule goal. It could be that you only want to work three hours a day, four days a week, and that whatever

you fit in that three hours, that's what you want to do. And the rest of the time you want to be intentional in the other areas of your life. Your goals are yours and they're your own. And so let them be something that's going to light you up. Let them be something that when, when you're working on your stuff and you're doing SEO and keyword research and you're pumping out the content and you're excited that you're like, yes, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm making this happen. So have that five-year plan. Have a more specific plan that's maybe one year. So think about 2023 as a whole and where you want to be. And then I would encourage you to reverse engineer your way back. So think about where you want to be. And then I would encourage you to kind of reverse

engineer your way back. So think about where you want to be December 2023. And then ask yourself, what do I need to do to break that down in order to achieve that and have check-ins throughout the year? So I'm just going to use an example of blog traffic for this. So when you're thinking about like your 2023 plan, let's say you wanna have 40,000 visitors to your blog on a given month by December of 2023. So how could you break that down? Well, quarter one, focus on getting 10,000 to your blog each month.

So that might kind of, you know, stair step it. It might be in January, you're gonna focus on 2,500. It might be by February, you know, stair-step it. It might be in January, you're going to focus on 2,500. It might be by February, you're hoping to get 5,000. By the end of March, you're at 10. And you need to ask yourself, what am I doing that's generating the traffic? How can I get in front of more people? And you just try to literally move the needle with each month. You might have some months that are down, you might have some months that are up, but look at the traffic, look at where it's going, look at what you're doing to get there. And that's the reverse engineer that I'm talking about.

Those are the check-ins. If you know by December of 2023, when you log in to your blog on December 31st, 2023, and you want to see 40,000, what do you need to do in January to hit that number? What do you need to keep doing in March? What do you need to do in the lull of the summer to make sure that you're going to be all right and you're still going to hit that goal and that you're still moving? So just ask yourself those things. Traffic was just an example. You can use that for a number of different things, but I use reverse engineering for so many different things in regards to goals. I mean, we do it all the time just with our own budget and finances at the house. If we have a trip planned, how much do we have to have in the account each month to make sure that we

save for the trip or whatever? So reverse engineering can really help, I think, in a lot of different areas. And it allows you to have a check-in and it allows you the option to ask yourself, is it working? Is it not? And how do I need to adjust? Make sure you're writing down your goals too. That's why I don't want you to make up like 15 goals. I want you to make up like three. Like three is a great number, three to five. I wouldn't do any more than five. And if you're doing five goals, like they don't need to be five big lofty goals. They just need to be five attainable goals that you can work on throughout the year and focus on. I love the idea of really breaking it down in that way. I think like when you look at things in that way of like, how can I break it down into tiny steps? It's going to help

you just get there faster or not faster, but like more likely to get there because it's not so overwhelming. And so we are going to share like I know Amy shared like a traffic example. We're going to share some examples of goals you can set. I promise we will. But we want to talk about one more thing before we get there. And that's some important things you need to do when you set goals. And Amy explained some important things you need to do when you set goals. And Amy explained some

guidelines, but now like once you've set goals, you really need to make sure that you're checking in on yourself. So don't just write down the goals in a notebook, stick them in your drawer and not look at them again for another year. You need to check in on these on a regular basis. So we in our business have implemented weekly meetings, and it has been kind of a game changer, I would say. We actually have a little agenda. You could wing it. You can do this piece however you want. And the meeting might be with an accountability partner, a business partner, or just yourself. You might just have a weekly meeting with yourself, but really put that on your calendar and make that a priority to check in. And I believe that we talked about this in another podcast episode with Angela Hatchie. And so we'll put a link to that in the show notes.

I think you need to go back and listen to that if you haven't. But really creating and carving out that time to check in with yourself in a way that feels positive and inspiring is really important. You don't want to ignore the important parts of your business. You are blogging because you want to have a business. So don't just decide,

okay, I'm just going to put my head down and I'm just going to go. You really need to take out those chunks of time and really look at what you, how far you've come. I think it's important to acknowledge that you need to look at what you need to do to achieve your goals, what you have left, and really just make sure you're on track or decide if you need to adjust. So like I said, you do want to write this down. You want to pull it out or have it on a spreadsheet that you can pull up and you can

update. Just make sure that you have this someplace where you can actually see it. It is important to find accountability if you can. If not, just start this process with yourself and make that one of your goals. Meet somebody that... Make a connection with another blogger out there who feels the same way you do. And you can set a weekly time to check in. We've done things like that before too. We just like helping each other. So there are things you can do. So just take it one baby step at a time. And like I said, you have to be willing to adjust your goals. You might have achieved it too easily. Maybe you set your goal too low. So can you adjust it up a little bit higher? Or did you set a completely unrealistic goal because you had no idea? Maybe you need to bring that down. Wouldn't it be better

to bring that down to something you could actually achieve than to go the rest of the year knowing you were going to like, quote, fail? Or maybe something just needs to come off the list. Or maybe you've done so amazingly well that you want to add some new goals onto your list. This really has to be flexible. That's, I think, one of the things that we forget about when it comes to goal setting. Like, oh, it was New Year's Day and we set a goal and it's set in stone and it can't change. But they can change and they quite honestly should change because, like I said, the information changes, platforms change, Google changes.

If you're looking at getting traffic to your site, algorithms change. Google changes. If you're looking at getting traffic to your site, algorithms change. There's so many new things that come about that you have to be willing and able to be flexible with that so that you can set or adjust goals that are reasonable and attainable for you with this new information. And ultimately, just be really kind to yourself. I think it's super easy when you are doing this to start beating yourself up. I'm so off track. And then you create this stressful situation that Amy was talking about where you end up just not even enjoying what you're doing anymore. And that's not why we're here. We're here to create a life that we enjoy, a life that we love, something

that we get to do that we're passionate about. Doesn't mean it's never going to be hard. Doesn't mean it's never going to be uncomfortable. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we're not here to beat ourselves up. No, beating yourself up is not part of the job description in regards to blogging. Pivoting is. And so just take that and really just hold that close to your heart as you're doing this because you are putting yourself out there. You're creating goals that sometimes can feel very scary. And there's no owner's manual, quite honestly, for blogging because things are always changing.

And so just know that as we kind of head into the kind of goals that you should set. So we kind of want to dive into that a little bit with you is what are some goals that bloggers can set, especially if we're telling new bloggers that setting financial goals for the first one to two years might not be what we would recommend. That doesn't mean that you can't, but I think it's very unrealistic. I saw something this week that said that new bloggers can expect to make $2,500 per month in their first six months. You guys take that with a grain of salt. I don't know many bloggers that that happens. Does that mean that it's impossible? No. But does that mean that that's happening to everyone? Absolutely not. It is not happening to everyone. So just know that.

That's why financial goals... Financial goals cannot always be direct correlation to your success. And so know that, know that your success has to be dependent upon something other than finances. Most of the time, think about the other things in your life that it's offering you. So for me, like I don't have to pay for afterschool care for my kids. So if you tally up with that costs, like if I worked an eight to five job that my kids had to go to afterschool care, think about that money that I'm saving our family. Like that, like you have to be able to put like a pen to paper and some other ways that are creative in what you're doing that saves your family money by being home. If that's, if you're

like me and like are doing it like that, that's just an example. So set some goals that you have some amount of control over. So you are not really in control of the social media algorithm. So telling yourself, I need to have 10,000 new followers by the end of the year, it's kind of arbitrary because we don't really know what Instagram is going to throw our way. We don't know if all of a sudden they're just going to clean up followers and you're going to wake up one day and a lot of them are going to be gone. You don't know who's going to see your content. So make sure that these goals that you're creating are actually like attainable and that you have some control over them.

So they need to be achievable. So first and foremost, some ideas could be like content creation. Ask yourself, how many posts am I able to do per week, per month? Set that as a goal. That goal can directly be in correspondence with the traffic goal that you might have, for instance. So the traffic goal, for instance, could be the long-term goal. And the way to reverse engineer it might be the content creation goal. Like, okay, I need X amount of traffic by this date. How am I going to get there? I'm going to get there by creating

this amount of posts on any given week or month. So set that goal for you. In our alum membership, for instance, we just challenged them for the last quarter to pick a number that they could achieve for the last quarter of the year. So content-wise, this is a content challenge. How many blog posts can you get out? Now, if you are an established blogger, this could also be going through old content and updating that content as well. So that doesn't always need to be new content, but how can you take the content that's on your blog and add more value to it, to the readers that are coming in? Maybe you have some content on your blog that gets a lot of traffic right now. Think about that specific piece and how you can break it down and allow it to serve even more

people. Or how can you go deeper with that content, for instance, and maybe make it cornerstone content and allow people to gain even more value from new content that you're going to create surrounding that topic. So think about that. When we say content creation, it's not that you have to literally rewrite the whole thing every time. It's not like a new piece of content every time. Look at what's doing well on your blog and how can you use that in a different way? How can you make sure that you're creating more content that people are coming to your blog to find out more information about? So content creation is one way that you can set a goal for yourself as a blogger that

is not tied to a financial goal. Another way is collaborations. This is something that Jennifer and I have been focusing on a lot more this year is collaborating with people that are aligned in our business. So whether you're a food blogger, a lifestyle blogger, maybe you are a craft blogger, travel blogger, collaborating with other people who you can basically tap into their audience. You can get in front of their audience, they can get in front of yours, and together you add value to the people who are there watching, learning, listening. And that is a great way to then in turn grow your

community. Maybe engagement is something that's important to you. And with that engagement comes traffic usually. So maybe it's spending X number of time engaging with your community and growing. Maybe it's making a monthly newsletter or a weekly newsletter. How can you get more engaged with your community? Maybe engagement is a way that you want to strengthen your relationships. I would highly encourage it to be honest, because your people who are showing up, the people who have subscribed to your email list, they want to know more about you. They want to know how you can help them and serve them. And so ask yourself that, what can I

do in order to strengthen that relationship? So engagement, I would also call relationships. How can you build relationships in your blogging business? Another way that you could create a goal is around how much time you either want to work or have to work. So let's say you are building your blog and you have a full-time job as well. Maybe you have a very specific amount of hours that you are able to put into your blog each week and you want to be very intentional with the time that you are sitting down and working on your blog. You're going to think about the high level things that you can do to move the needle forward. So that's going to be creating content and promoting your content are going to be the

areas that you're really going to want to focus on the most. Because let's say you have, you only have 10 hours a week. You definitely don't want to spend those 10 hours a week engaging on Instagram. That's not going to give you the most bang for your buck. You want to make sure that you're spending some time like on SEO and keyword research. And so what are those high level things that you can use in the amount of time that you have to work? Just because you only have 10 hours a week doesn't mean you can't create goals surrounding that amount of time. I think a lot of times when we have less time, we can actually be more

intentional. I think sometimes when we give ourselves too much time, that's when procrastination becomes an issue. And so don't look at the amount of time that you have or don't have as something that can work against you. I often see new bloggers who are working full-time jobs and fitting in blogging in the nooks and crannies. Some of them are so driven and they know exactly what they want and what they need to do in order to achieve it. And so they do it honestly faster than somebody who has all day. So don't let that amount of time, if you're like working full time or whatever, or you have young ones and you can only work during nap time, don't let that hold you back. Just know that's a season and that you likely won't be in that season forever and that it will shift and change. But how can you

be intentional in that space in 2023? And you can create goals surrounding that. Another opportunity for goal setting would be surrounding education. And what do you want to learn more of? Maybe you started your blog this year and you know that you need to improve keyword research or SEO. Maybe you're going to look into courses that could give you a little bit bigger insight on that. Maybe you know that you want to market on Pinterest. And so you're going to lean into that a bit more by taking a Pinterest course, or maybe just coming up with your own Pinterest strategy for that matter, and getting more visible over on Pinterest. Email marketing would be another area that you could possibly look at. Maybe it's photography. There are so many things

that you can learn with blogging. You can literally learn something new every single day. But one thing I want to give is a caveat there. Do not just learn, learn, learn, and never execute. So if you are making it a goal to learn something new in 2023 to further your business, make sure you're doing the thing that you're learning. Make sure you're actually putting it into practice. Don't go from one course to another to another without actually implementing what you've learned because you're taking time

to gain that knowledge and education. And so it's worth the time to improve those strategies or apply those to different areas of your blog and use it for growth. I do think that we should all be trying to learn in some capacity. It doesn't have to be a course. Truthfully, it could be a book. I am an avid reader.

I read as often as I can. And there are a ton of books out there that you can gain information from. And so picking up a book that might give you the motivation that you need to go after your goals, doing some self-growth and things like that, Just don't be stagnant in your blog. I think that's when we get bored with it, or that's when we feel like it becomes just another job is when we lose our excitement for it. So education and learning new things is one way that we can just stay really excited and passionate about what we're doing. really excited and passionate about what we're doing.

Email marketing is an essential piece of blogging. Growing your email list is just as important as SEO and keyword research in our opinion. And in order to grow your list, you need a reliable platform that will allow you to connect with your community and turn them into email subscribers. That's where ConvertKit comes in. ConvertKit is the go-to marketing hub for creators, that will allow you to connect with your community and turn them into email subscribers. That's where ConvertKit comes in. ConvertKit is the go-to marketing hub for creators like you that helps you grow and monetize your audience with ease. ConvertKit allows you to grow your audience and reach, put your funnels on autopilot and earn an income with your email list, all with an easy to use platform that is approachable, even for beginners. Click the link in our show notes to learn more about the different plans that ConvertKit has and how it can help you propel your business to the next level.

Now, if you have been blogging for a couple years, three years, four years, you are at a little bit of an advantage in terms of having data in order to make some goals. That's not to say all the goals that we've just talked about, all the examples that we just gave, those apply to you as well, especially if you haven't done like a real goal setting session for yourself, or you haven't really been intentional about setting goals, I think those are really important things for you to think about before you go to that next level. But if you wanted to start looking at one or two goals that you could set for yourself in regards

to traffic or income, once you've been blogging for a couple years, you'll actually have some data to look at. And I just love this piece of blogging. I love the numbers. I love the analytics. And so that's one of the cool things as a blogger is there's so much that you can see about what's happening inside your blog, so to speak. So you've got Google Analytics and Google Console, and they are tracking people that are coming to your blog, like where are they coming from? What are they looking at? How long are they staying? There's so much data that you can look at. And I know that piece can be overwhelming. But if you can just take a look on a regular basis at some of the high level, most important data, you will have information about what kind of traffic you're getting to your site.

And that is not the end all be all to blogging. But if you're wanting to get on an ad network, you're wanting to increase some ad revenue, you're wanting to just make sure you're getting enough eyes on your blog so that you can get more email signups so that you can create products and services for people to see. Having a goal of increasing traffic on your blog can be a really great thing. You want to make sure you are being really mindful of what kind of traffic you're creating. You don't want to create traffic just to create traffic. You want to get the right kind of people on your site. But what you can do is you can start to dig into the data and look and see like, are most people coming from Pinterest? Are they finding me on Google? And what content do they like the most? And so you can see those kinds of things

that will give you some guidelines in terms of what performs well, where you're performing well, so that you can start to create new content that fits those parameters. And it also will tell you like, okay, if I created more of that, what could I expect? So if I had a really popular post and I created something that complemented that, I would start to know what to expect in terms of if that might be able to rank or if I could send traffic from one post to another. As you get to practice with those things over time, having that data will help you make decisions. So like say year one and year two, you looked at your overall traffic

and it increased by like 10%. And then year three, it also increased by 10%. Well, then year four, you can probably guess that it will increase by 10% again. Or you could set a goal and say, okay, if I dig back into this other data, I might be able to make it increase by 20%. And you could make an educated prediction of that based on how things have performed in the past. It's never a perfect model, but that's not what we're trying to do here. We're just trying to use what we have available to us to make some predictions and set some goals for the future that are realistic based on what has already happened. So like I said, you can look at your stats, see how much you typically would increase each year,

and then decide what you want to do with that information. And you can also start to think about, do I want to set some new goals based on where I'm at today? Maybe I'm good with my traffic where it's at right now, and I want to add in some other pieces that might create an income. So I might say, okay, well, now I want to start in some other pieces that might create an income. So I might say, okay, well, now I want to start working on making sure that I'm capturing people who come to my site. So my goal this year is going to be to get X number of email signups per month. And I know how many I have now. So I'm going to test out some strategies to increase that. So you really get to start playing with things. I think the sky becomes

the limit, which is a blessing and a curse because you can start thinking about too many things all at once, but just pick something that would be most important to you that would kind of go back to those overall goals. Does it fit into that? Am I going to have to work so much that I'm not going to meet my goal of only working X number of hours per week? Well, then maybe that's not a good goal to set for this year. Let's pick something that's reasonable, that fits into the parameters that I have set forth for myself, and start working on some, I guess, more specific or more aspirational goals in terms of setting some financial or traffic goals for my site. So basically anything is possible with blogging.

I hope whether you are an experienced blogger and have been doing this a while or whether you're new to blogging or even considering blogging, that we've given you something to think about today. If you are thinking about blogging, know that there are steps that you can take to start

that blog in 2023. Maybe that is the, maybe that is your step. Maybe that is your goal of what you want to do in 2023 is start the blog and just know that there is no timeline. You're on your own timeline and the way that someone else has achieved success does not have to be directly correlated to how you're doing it. And it doesn't mean else has achieved success does not have to be directly correlated to how you're doing it. And it doesn't mean that everybody gets there the same way. Success is not linear. And being willing to pivot, I think, is one of the best things that you can learn when it comes to blogging and knowing that that is pivoting with your business strategy, that is pivoting on a day-to-day basis, that is learning to kind of roll with the punches

as things change or as you grow or as you learn new things. I think that you have to be willing to do that in this business. And as you go into 2023 and think about the things that you wanna achieve and the goals that you want to get to, I hope that you come at them with grace

and a lot of love for why you are choosing to do what you're doing. I think too, something that would be important is to make sure that you are often checking in with your why, like, why are you doing this? If it's just to make like, I want to make X amount of money, but there's no why behind it. I would argue that a little bit. I would ask yourself, but why, like, why is that amount of money necessary for you? You know, what, what is the money going to do for you? What is the time that you're hoping to get going to necessary for you? What is the money going to do for you? What is the time that you're hoping to get going to do for you? What is the traffic

that you're wanting to achieve? How is it going to bless you? How is it going to bless others? And I think when you come at it from a lens of that is how is this going to add value to my life and others, then it makes it a little easier when things don't always go according to plan. Because we would love it if we could sit down at the end of the year and write our business plan for the next year. And it all happened just like that, but it doesn't. And that doesn't mean that's not a reason to write the business plan or to write the goals. We have to have something that we're working towards in order to know where we're going and where we want to head. So don't be afraid to set

the goals. Don't be afraid to get real with yourself. Have a heart to heart. Don't be afraid to find an accountability partner and sit down and have some of those scary conversations with each other. I think often we have these big, scary goals in our lives that we want to do. And sometimes we just need to clue somebody else in on that because making it more of a public statement gets it out of your head and it allows you to start taking some steps forward to making it happen. I want you to know that that dream that you are wanting, that goal that you are working for next year is completely possible, but it starts with a plan. And I hope today that we have given you some insight and some inspiration in order to make that plan for yourself. We would love to hear

what your goals are, whether you just send us an email or connect with us over on social media, we would love to know what you're working on. And if there's any way that we can support you in that, please let us know. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we are always so excited when we see people really stepping into their truth and where their light shines and being able to support you in that. And we love to see it happen. We love when you share what you're working on with us. So please do that. We would love to hear about it. So we look forward to another year with the podcast in 2023. This was our big goal this year, to be honest, was the podcast. Our 2022 goal was to have a podcast episode every single week and we've done it. And that feels

amazing and awesome. And we have been able to connect with so many people because of this podcast and it was scary and we didn't know what it was going to be like. And I know I had the question of, what are we going to talk about? And I know that that's surprising that I might actually have the question, what am I going to talk about? But I did. And like, how are we going to keep coming up with new things?

But it's so interesting when you lean into something that you've been called to do, how the steps just keep aligning. Like you just keep being told, now here's the next step. Now here's the next step. So I wish you well on your next step in 2023. I'm excited for the dreams that you have in your heart. And I am just rooting for you. Jennifer's rooting for you to make those happen. They can absolutely happen. Just keep believing in yourself, making time to check in and we believe in you. So thanks for being here. Thanks for being a really important part of our big scary goal in 2022. And we are so excited to continue

sharing this with you in the upcoming year. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes.

Go out and make today a great day.