5 Tips for Effective Goal Setting in Your Massage Business

If you ask anyone who’s achieved great success in business and life, how they did so, there’s one common theme to pretty much all their answers…..setting and achieving specific goals.
Sounds simple, right? I want X and I work toward that.
But it’s much easier said than done. I see members in our Facebook group as well as other colleagues on a regular basis who just work in whatever the day brings, and aren’t really being specific about what they want out of their business or how to get it. But this is actually a massive holdup for a lot of businesses and the reason they don’t really move forward, and unfortunately leads to a lot of people quitting altogether. But I’m here to stop that and not just say that setting goals is important, but give you some steps to make sure your goal setting is as effective as possible.

The hardest part for most people is battling overwhelm. You see this lofty goal in the sky and want it with every fiber of your being, but there’s so many steps to get there, so many things that have to fall into place, it just seems impossible. Can you really achieve all that? It can be overwhelming. You may start to doubt yourself and your abilities. You may constantly procrastinate. Or you may simply just wing it and think that’ll have to do because you don’t really know any other way. You can be your own worst enemy when it comes to getting in the way of your goals. Don’t be!

Here’s a 5 step plan to beat overwhelm and set those goals so they’re achievable.

#1 Write out your primary goal
This is the big picture. What is your goal in life? Not your business, but your life! Is it to own your own home and spend more time with your kids? Is it to travel the world? Whatever big plan you dream of for your life, write it down. Don’t be afraid to dream big here! It’s your life, figure out how you want to live it. You can work out the details later.

#2 What does that mean for you?
This is where you need to start getting technical. So if your dream is to have the finances to own a home and spend more time with your kids, what does that mean for you realistically? What kind of annual income would you need to get there? What’s the maximum hours per week that you want to work to afford more time with your kids? Figure out what that goal means in reality and what your business will need to look like to afford you that dream.

#3 What are the large concepts that make up that primary goal?
Now we transform those ideas into reality and start coming up with more tangible goals. Let’s say in the last step you said a $100,000/year income would afford you all of that, and you only want to work 30 hours per week. How do you get to that income level in a way that you can limit your hours? This is where you need to run your numbers in detail. Maybe you’ve got a busy practice, but you’ve reached your maximum session hours per week and you’re still not near that income level. So, one option could be to expand your business to hire more therapists so you can manage things more and not be so dependent on an hourly session rate. Whatever the case is, figure out those broad concepts to that primary goal.

#4 Break that down into smaller and smaller goals
Here’s where we work out all those details. Let’s say you decide to bring on more therapists, still see some clients, but take on more of a managerial role. How do you get to the point of being able to put that into action? You break it down! Those large goals can be overwhelming, so break each down into smaller and smaller goals to make it more manageable. More than likely you can’t just go out and hire 10 therapists and transform your business overnight and be successful. It’s a slow process. First, you bring on one other therapist. Set goals surrounding that.
-Write out what you want in a therapist and list places you can look to find that sort of person.
-Plan whether you need a renter or employee and all the details surrounding that.
-Work up all the paperwork, policies, and contracts that you’ll need.
-Coordinate the space for this therapist.
-Save X amount of money to cover the employee’s income and benefits for a few months in case things are tight.
-Write out your new marketing plan to bring in clients for your new therapist.

Then you can move on into breaking down each of your those goals into manageable chunks. You take it one goal at a time, one day at a time.

#5 Make a timeline
It’s easy to set goals. It’s not so easy to achieve them. Even with the breakdown of all the things to do, it can still seem overwhelming, especially now with this massive list of tasks to do. This is when creating a real plan comes into play, and making a realistic timeline is crucial for that. Don’t just have this arbitrary list lying around of all the things you need to do. Put each one into your calendar with hours marked off to work on that particular small goal, and have deadlines in place. Treat yourself like you would an employee. Hold yourself accountable for getting each done by a certain date. Putting it into your calendar and having deadlines will make it all much easier to manage, so that every day and every week, you’re working on building that road to your primary goal.

If you truly want to succeed, as I think we all do, setting goals is crucial, but taking the steps to achieve those goals is what counts more than anything. So go for it! Reach for the sky and start building the ladder to get there, one rung at a time!