Clear and Kind ABG Goals

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Welcome to Episode 77 of the Teachers in Business podcast, I am Sara Torpey, I am happy to see you. If you are not already in my Facebook group, which is also called Teachers in Business, I want to make sure to invite you to also join the fun there. We do all the best things in that group. And today we're talking about something I've started teaching more and more in that group, which is a new way to think about goals. It's not new in the universe, because like nothing is new of the universe, right? Like everything's around for me, this way of setting goals that I am using for myself right now. And I'm teaching my clients feels like a really big departure from what I used to do and what I used to teach. What's interesting to me about this is it has really, this is an episode that is overdue for me, it's been on my list to record and share for quite a while. But I realized recently that because it's been such a shift for me, and even what I teach and what I talk about in my group, and how I coach clients, that I feel like I felt a little weird about it, because it's really a big shift, where I was once teaching something that I don't really feel like fits anymore. And that feels funny right to evolve into is sort of a more of a more more mature way of thinking about it. So this is like an evolution and how I think about goals. And what I want to give you today is the chance to evolve how you think about goals maybe, and bring them more in line with the way you work, bring them more in line with how you can become successful and also nice to yourself in business faster. And not have you spend so much time and energy and frustration on setting goals that aren't serving you. So, here's I wrote out my notes for today. They're really sketchy. But here's what I want to say. So for me, what I'm thinking of the as the old way of goal setting is not all that much different from the new way except in intent. So in the old way, I was setting monthly and weekly and quarterly and yearly goals like we're all taught like, this is what the good students do, right? We set our goals, we put our markers down, the way I was setting them for a very long time was very much driven by the amount of money I wanted to make the amount of clients I wanted to sign, which is fine. This is very much a road to goal setting that I was set on by a business coach very early on, but certainly was something I was doing anyways. But that was very much how she had me set goals. Like she would say, Okay, how many clients do you want to sign this month? How much money do you want to make? You know, and how, what are you going to do to get there? And, you know, the goals were clear, like there was never any lack for me of like, okay, here's the number, here's the money. Here's the number of people, here's who I have to talk to you to get there. Here's how many calls I have to make. Here's the close rate. But that's not really how I think about business anymore. It's not how I have evolved to think about business. It's not what I teach. And, and what I'm not saying is that I'm away from numbers or making it really quantitative, because my math brain can't allow that, like the former math teacher and me is like no, no quantify that. So for me, the journey to the new way, which I will share with you in a second started with this coach that had me set these numbers. And you know, what I found is I was always almost always shy of either the number of clients I wanted to sign or the amount of money I wanted to make or both sometimes, like, like egregiously shy. And I just felt like I was doing something that wasn't working. Like it didn't feel kind to me to set goals that fell out of my control, right. I don't control what other people do. And that's the complaint we have about goals related to money and people. Like I can't make the person sign in June if they're not ready in June and I don't want to force them to certainly there is a world of coaching and sales where it's like okay, do whatever you have to do to get them to sign now versus later. But I'm not that. I don't want to do that. That's not how I want to sell or invite or connect or any of that. So after I worked that with that coach, I moved on to a group program and in that group program What I really took away after six months was learning how to practice running a business and also being nice to myself. I know that sounds really simple, but like we are as business owners, as teachers, as humans, as people, moms, women, whatever, really hard on ourselves. And so what I spent a long time, particularly, you know, like 2020, and a fair amount of 2021, practicing was setting goals missing. But learning to be nice to myself, and have my own back no matter what, as my coach would say. So what happened as I learned to be kind to myself, and that's not let myself off the hook or any of those things, I still committed to you and took actions and did all the things. And if you want to know more about specifically what that looks like, we I'm happy to talk about it. But what I found was that setting goals that were like number of clients amount of money every month, while I was being nice to myself like this, while I was like not harping on myself when I missed, just felt weird, right? It feels mismatched to do that. And so in the last year or so my thinking on selling and how I want to run my business has really evolved into what I teach now, which is a model called ABG. Instead of always be closing and always be creating sales, it is always be giving. And so what that has led me do in the ABG process, there's only three steps, it's ground, connect, invite. And in that process, all of those things are within my control. Right, I can control how grounded I am. Through the work that I do for myself, I can control the amount of connections I'm making by how far and wide, I'm putting myself out there. And I can control the amount of invitations I make. All of those things are in my control in a way that money and signed clients are not because they are mind to do versus, versus the opposite. So for me now, what's changed is I look at my week, I look at my month I look at my quarter, I look at my year in terms of my monthly and weekly goals related to grounding, connecting, inviting. What's different about this, this is my new way as opposed to the old way is not the cadence of my goals. It is not that I mean, I have daily goals at this point like that are quantified I aim for three invitations a day. And actually I did a training last week in my Facebook group called Three offers a day, or I did it early in July. So how I make three offers a day without driving myself insane, or confusing myself or anyone else. And if you feel like that would be really useful for you. It is still pinned inside my Facebook group, you can access it whenever you like, it was really useful for people. And it is free for you. If you come on into the group, please come use it if it would be helpful. But so for me and for what I'm teaching now, in relation to goals, I have stopped setting client and money goals. Because here's what I know, I know, in this is sort of a level of trust that has evolved in my business. I know that if I ground connect an invite if I follow this ABG process that I've created for myself and my clients, that the rest of the things that I need the money in the clients take care of themselves. It is sort of like in a classroom. When you look at standards for you know, math, for example, there are content skills that we teach kids like the what we're teaching them, and there are process skills for how we teach them to do things. So like in math, it's content skill would be multiplying two digit numbers. A process skill would be something like problem solving skills or critical thinking or learning to deal with frustration, you know, persistence, those kinds of things. It is focusing my work on process skills, the how I'm doing things, and letting the what the content, the number of people the amount of money, letting those things take care of themselves, because I'm going to have to control what I can control. So for you today, here's the thing to consider. First when you're setting your goals What about the goals you're setting which pieces are in your control and in our, in our not both words, which pieces are in or control in which pieces are not, you know, if it's not in your control, I am under the, I feel now that if it's not in your control, it doesn't belong in there. The other thing is, you know, which things are sort of your process skills that you can, you know, when you have a kid in school with great process skills, the content sort of figures itself out, right? If they know how to problem solve, if they persist, if they're resilient, if they, you know, are willing to collaborate and ask questions that are pretty much anything they can figure out, there's not any problems, they'll build, learn the content. So what are your process skills versus your content skills? And how can you use this model of grounding, connecting and inviting to help you set goals that are not just clear, but are also kind to borrow a Brene, brown ism? You know, she talks about Claire's kind of client is clear. And, you know, for me, the new way I'm setting goals is clear. But it's also kind to me, because I have an understanding of what I need to do in that is it. It is not about anybody but me. There is no requirement on anybody else. I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. I am not beholden to when people make a decision, I know that they will. And when they do, I'm here. So if you look at your goals, do they fear feel clear and kind? Or is it just one or the other? And how can you bring yourself in the goals you're setting into a both clear for you and your business and kind to you in the way you work? Place? If you have questions about this, please come into my Facebook group, ask questions. Again, it's called teachers and business, come to my LinkedIn, come to me on Facebook Messenger, send me an email at sara@torpeycoaching.com. And I'm happy to talk about it. If you would love to be setting goals this way. But it feels insane. Because it is very different from what the world tells us. Right? Like, as my, as my coach says now, like, it's all about, you know, SMART goals. And but those are not in line with with how most of us function. If we're coming at the world, as a teacher as someone in service to others, it's just not how we think. So if those goals aren't working for you, the way you're setting them now, and they're just leading you to feel defeated, that doesn't have to be set like that, let's do it different. If you need help trying to figure out what this looks like for you, because honestly, maybe it's a blend of both. It's somewhere in the middle. It's not entirely my model, it's not entirely the model you're in now, that's fine. I am happy to help you sort one from the other and find the place that you land most effectively. If you want to have a conversation about goals, your goals, what they could be, what they are, how they're serving you how they're not, please reach out, you can send me a message again at sara@torpeycoaching.com, come into my Facebook group, any of those things. And if you're ready for coaching, if you're ready to not only set better goals, but know which actions really matter. Know which steps are the steps that really grow your business. What counts is invitations for you what kinds of connections, how you ground yourself, if you need any of those pieces, it's time for coaching. And it really is a difference maker. There's a colleague of mine who has a post from last week that I keep thinking of, and she made this list of characteristics of people who get coached versus don't. One of the first things she mentioned was that people who don't get coached tend to panic more tend to, you know, little things, throw them off in a bigger way and people who get coached regularly, are much less flammable. There's much less deviation, there's much, much less panic and drama, and the amount of panic or drama that comes in from you know, a change just shrinks exponentially. And so if you're ready for like less driving off the road, and more just staying on your task and staying on your path and sticking with your goals and keeping it regular and predictable and tight. This is for you. So please look to Talk about coaching if you set some new goals and you want to share them please send them my way I would love to hear them and I would love to give you some feedback so feel free to reach out and until next week have a great week guys