In this week’s episode, Anna explores the common mistakes many make when creating their business vision and goals, offering invaluable insights to help you avoid these pitfalls. Whether you’re a solopreneur, coach, consultant, or speaker, this episode will empower you to create a meaningful and personally fulfilling vision for your business. Tune in to learn how to set a vision that truly aligns with your life’s aspirations and drives real satisfaction.
Key moments:
[00:45] Importance of setting the right goals
[01:45] The dangers of copying someone else’s vision
[06:16] Pitfall 1: Copying someone else’s vision
[06:58] Pitfall 2: Focusing on external validation
[08:14] Pitfall 3: Setting vague or uninspiring goals
[10:09] How to course correct if you’ve gone off track
[11:28] Strategy sessions and resources for creating your vision
[12:03] Invitation to the Business Accelerator programme
Resources mentioned:
- The Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware
- Free access to the first pillar workbook of the Business Academy. Email Anna at
podcast@onestepoutside.com with the subject line “Success Workbook.” - The Outsiders Business Academy
- The Outsiders Business Accelerator
- A half-day strategy session (limited spots available)
Creating your business vision
One of the first exercises I ever did and helped other people do as a coach was to set goals. And it seems like such an obvious thing. And everyone talks about smart goals and there’s so much information about how to set a goal and execute your plan and so on. But I think unfortunately, there are some really common pitfalls when it comes to designing your vision for your life. First of all, not doing it at all, but that’s another story. And, but secondly, when you design the specific goals and metrics of success for you and your individual, your personal situation and aspirations, there are a few common pitfalls that I see.
So I wanted to walk you through these today. Now, hopefully you’ve been listening. The last couple of weeks we’ve been talking about setting up a vision that aligns with your life goals and aspirations. I talked about how important it is to really think about the business model that you need, your specific energy, health, family situation, and so on, and to do so in a really meaningful way for you. But the whole story of redefining success, of course, comes from the fact that either we haven’t defined success in a any kind of way before, we haven’t defined it in a meaningful way. We’ve copied someone else’s definition of success, whether consciously or unconsciously. We’ve kind of been forced, obliged by family, society, or a former version of ourselves. And that’s already getting in the way of beginning to redefine what success looks like.
Let’s say now that you’ve decided to come up with a vision for yourself and your business, what can go wrong? A few little pitfalls to talk about. Now, the first one, let’s say they’ll be three, more or less, the first one is copying someone else’s vision. And look, this could be conscious, most likely it’s going to be unconscious, it’s going to be happening subconsciously because social media makes it so easy to compare what everyone else is doing. And you know, if you’re in a group, then I’m in a mentoring group where I specifically am speaking and I see people doing amazing things and speaking is one part of my business. It’s not the biggest part, certainly not yet. That’s why I’m in the programme. But there are people with amazing stories and they want to. Someone, you know is travelling and living the van life and someone else is wanting to, you know, do the TED talk and do the big stages and so on, maybe travel the world while doing those talks.
Someone else, you know, is doing whatever high ticket, in person intensive, blah, blah, blah. There are so many exciting things, lifestyle wise, business wise, income wise, and it’s very easy to be caught up then, oh my gosh, yes, we all need to do this, I have to admit, and I’m going to sound a bit arrogant and patronising here, so take it with a pinch of salt and I apologise in advance. I don’t think I do this as much now as I did when I first started. I have been redefining success for myself for 10 plus years. I’m a bit of an expert, certainly for my own life at least, and I’ve been helping other people do the same. When I first left my corporate job 2013, I quit my job to work for myself. But I quickly, first of all, I was going to interviews for other jobs that was already getting kind of caught up in that. Then there were recruiters coming to me to start to work in consulting.
Certainly the job offers and things that came to me were all in sort of the luxury big company. So on corporate space, when I break free of that and start my own business, I was, you know, I wanted to be a writer and then I was in writing groups and then, oh my gosh, everyone’s writing and they’re authors and they’re writing novels and that’s so amazing. I want to do that. I joined amazingly sort of adventure groups. We went canoeing and paddleboarding down the Mississippi. I did a 24 hour, I want to say Kayak, down the Thames. We paddleboarded down the Thames. You know, people were going to festivals and again living in vans and all this stuff, giving up material possessions.
And I sort of got caught up in that and like, oh my gosh, I’ve got to. And I almost did. And I remember this now, paddle board across Sweden. I still want to do it. My parents were very worried and luckily for them I didn’t do it. Maybe I was going to say maybe I’m too old, but of course I’m not too old, so watch their space. But it’s not going to happen right now. And if anyone wants to join me, I wanted to paddleboard from Stockholm to Gothenburg along Yata Canal, which is this channel.
But you do have to cross some open water and some lakes. But that’s by the by. The point is I was landing into this adventure world and after having left behind the corporate world of comparing myself to corporate people who all wanted an income and stock options and the house and blah blah, blah, then suddenly I land with people who don’t want that at all. But that was another extreme in another direction. So when we’re in communities and so, and it’s so powerful to be with like minded people, but it can lead us down the wrong path for us because we’re kind of being drawn to something that seems aspirational. We’re not considering our own unique lifestyle skills, values and all the things we talked about last week. So health, energy, income needs and so on. Right.
So copying someone else’s vision is very dangerous. By all means, look to your role models and look for inspiration from these people and take what you want to integrate into your vision, but make it your own vision. So the first vision pitfall is copying someone else’s vision. The second pitfall is focusing on external validation. And I talk about this a lot and I know it resonates with a lot of you that I speak to this kind of. And again, it’s not intentional as such, but it’s very much ingrained, indoctrinated into us seeking approval from our peers, from family, from social media. And it’s about, oh, I need that. Sorry to give the same examples always, but best selling author status on Amazon.
I have to have the TED talk. I want the, I do want the 10,000 followers on Instagram. You know, we want those numbers, we want the likes and the viral status, the top Voice badge on LinkedIn or whatever it is. And some of those things are meaningful to an extent. But if that’s all we’re focusing on we might not get it. When we get it, it might not be meaningful, and we might have burned out to get it right and we’re living for someone else. Bronnie Ware, who was a palliative nurse who wrote the Five Regrets of the Dying, One of her regrets was living according to. In fact, it was the top regret.
What other people, what I thought other people expected of me. Sorry, that was a long roundabout way of saying that. So she collected regrets from the dying, and one of them, the top one, was, I wish I’d lived a life that was true to who I am instead of living according to other people’s expectations. So it should be internal fulfilment, your internal compass that guides you rather than that external validation. So pitfall two, focusing on external validation. And pitfall three is, and this comes back to the general sort of New Year’s resolutions, blah, blah, blah. It’s setting really vague or uninspiring goals. Make more money, get fit, speak more.
Like, build a business. Like all this stuff. It’s just not. It’s not a goal, it’s not a vision. You need to feel it, you need to taste it. You need to imagine yourself doing those things, being those things in the future. And I’ve closed my eyes as I talk to you. This is me standing on the stage talking to thousands of people because I have this message and I want to make an impact.
Or this is me on a beach somewhere with low ticket course sales coming in screenshots all the time so I don’t have to be there doing anything. I’ve done all the work. Six months of the year, hustle, hustle. And then six months of the year can take off to travel the world. You know, you really need to paint a vivid picture of what it looks like. How are you showing up? How are you feeling? What are you wearing? Who are you with? What are you doing? And so on to bring that vision to life in a really tangible way. If we’re talking about sort of more short term goals, you know, rather than make more money for this year or this quarter, get really specific. I want to help 10 clients achieve this transformation by June.
Or I want to have, you know, pitched 10 podcasts or sent five Ted Talk applications, whatever it is, right? That’s not the vision, but that’s the sort of tangible interpretation of what the big vision requires you to do. And I will be writing every day because I want to be a writer and that means that I write. Really bring it to life. Don’t just, again, take those Vague goals that you feel you should have or it’s not going to be helpful to get you moved towards that goal. So three key pitfalls. Copying someone else’s vision, whether consciously or not, focusing on external validation and setting vague one inspiring goals. So final one I guess is how do you course correct if you’ve got a bit off track? Well, listen to the last couple of episodes because I’ve been talking about exactly that. Above all, give yourself permission to pivot.
It’s okay. It might feel embarrassing that you’ve been telling everyone that you’re going to do this big adventure and then you don’t or you are going to travel and blah blah, blah, and you don’t and you were going to write this book and you didn’t. Doesn’t matter. If that’s not meaningful to you, somebody will go, oh, first of all, they’ll forgotten that you said it in the first place. Nobody cares about you as much as you care about yourself. Sorry to say that. And secondly, like, if you then have a new vision that you’re fully behind, then people will get behind that. It’s fine.
Thirdly, if you keep doing something just because you feel bad about, you know, what people will think and so on, then you’re really living your life according to someone else or according to what you old, you set yourself unrealistically or un meaningfully in the past. So don’t do that. So give yourself permission to pivot. By all means, incubate a bit. Don’t tell people right away, you know, if you don’t want to keep kind of flipping and flopping and appearing a bit flaky to people. Take the time, incubate your ideas, get the support you need, realign your actions with your new vision and on you go. Okay, so I hope that was a bit of a sort of warning, I suppose, of things that can go wrong. If you do want my help, then I do run strategy sessions to get clarity on your next steps, to really define that plan to bring your vision to life, really.
And of course I’ve got lots of other resources if you want to book a call with me. It’s probably the best next step. You can do that@onestepoutside.com call. That’s onestepoutside.com call and I look forward to hearing about your vision and how we can start getting you moving in that direction. Okay, thanks for listening. Bye for now. All right, so if any of this resonates and you’re ready to build a business that truly works for you without the overwhelm, without the hustle, all that constant second guessing. Then I’d love for you to join us in the business accelerator.
Bringing together a small group of like minded experts, coaches, consultants, solopreneurs who want that personalised support, clear action steps and above all, real accountability. If you want to get in early, then head on over to onestepoutside.com accelerate onestepoutside.com accelerate to register your interest or join the waiting list. Let’s create the business and the life that you have always wanted. Can’t wait to see you inside.
WORK WITH ANNA
Let us help you design a business and a life that gives you freedom from the 9 to 5. There are several options for how you can work with us. Choose the programme that’s right for you.
The Outsiders Business Incubator
A year-long business incubator for experienced corporate professionals who want to translate their skills and passions into a profitable and fulfilling business. onestepoutside.com/9to5
The Outsiders Business Accelerator
An ongoing mastermind for service-based business owners, freelancers and online entrepreneurs who are ready to achieve success on their own terms. onestepoutside.com/accelerate
The Outsiders Business Academy
A self-paced course for you to work through in your own time, to learn – and implement – the foundations of building a profitable business that lets you escape the 9 to 5. onestepoutside.com/course
1:1 Coaching & Mentoring
If you’re looking for one-to-one support to help you achieve your specific life and business goals, Anna has a limited number of spots for individual coaching and mentoring. onestepoutside.com/coaching
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