Three Steps To Achieving Your Entrepreneurial Goals

Chris Evans, Entrepreneur, investor, author and co-founder of Traffic and Funnels

Traffic and Funnels

The day-to-day life of entrepreneurship never looks the same. As a business owner, you solve problems and navigate challenges everyday. In most cases, entrepreneurship can consume your personal life. This is a natural part of the process, especially at the beginning, but every entrepreneur needs to learn how to find a healthy balance.

Whether your business is just getting off the ground, or you are already settled into the life of an entrepreneur, it’s important to set goals for your personal life and plan for your future. When things go awry or go really well, when business gets rough or when it accelerates, a strategic plan for your personal life will help you stay balanced.

Entrepreneur, investor, author and cofounder of Traffic and Funnels Chris Evans is passionate about coaching entrepreneurs on wealth management, and how to balance personal life. He believes that planning is the key to a happy, successful and fulfilled life. He breaks essential life and career planning down into three categories: cultivating an environment, eliminating ambiguity, and committing to growth. 

Cultivate an Environment Where You Can Thrive

In the last year, many have learned the challenges of working from home in an environment not initially designed for workplace tasks. Without proper structure, tools, and limited distractions, many found the switch to remote work difficult because the environment was not setting them up for success. And while most people either adapted, or went back to offices, the lesson was learned: environment is everything.

Evans says that the key to a healthy, balanced and successful life is an environment that is designed to cultivate those things. It’s a combination of personal commitments and professional commitments that make it possible for entrepreneurs to cultivate a success-driven environment. Environment is everything from the people around you, to the food you eat, to the media you consume (TV, books, news, social media), to what you do in your spare time.

You can’t improve your fitness by sitting on the couch, eating junk food, thinking about wanting to be fit. You have to change your environment to get there. The same applies to entrepreneurship. You can’t improve your entrepreneurial success and your personal life by working yourself to pieces, wasting valuable time, hoping that one day you’ll achieve success and harmony. Ask yourself what you need in your environment to succeed in your business and personal life. Whether it’s better sleep, more time for play, or more structured work hours, create an environment where you can achieve those things.

Eliminate Ambiguity Around Goals

If your goals are unclear, you will not be able to achieve them. Form a strategic plan, with timelines, in order to eliminate ambiguity about the things you want to achieve in your personal and professional life. Evans recommends his clients track very specific goals, whether it’s an item they want to be able to purchase, or a certain number of days off per month, or a specific amount of financial growth each pay period, each of these things should be written down and assigned timelines.

Evans encourages his clients to think beyond comfort, or think beyond survival. Yes, as an entrepreneur, you need to make enough money to pay your bills. Once this is covered, think further than those everyday needs. What kind of legacy do you want to build? How charitable do you want to be? What do you want your day-to-day life to be like?

These should be specific goals that you can measure, along specific timelines that you can track. Eliminating ambiguity helps entrepreneurs craft a strategy to achieve success. It also helps clarify your overall mission and purpose.

Commit Yourself to Growth

No matter how many personal and professional goals you achieve, make sure that you are committed to growth. This applies to personal gains—like the lifestyle you can afford, or the amount of money you can give to others—and it applies to professional gains like increasing staff, generating more revenue, and so on. Keep growth at the forefront of your mind and you will stay motivated.

If you want to build a balanced life as an entrepreneur, don’t neglect goal-setting in your personal life. Most entrepreneurs let personal life fall to the wayside, and they suffer later. Focus on setting ambitious goals, achieving them, and then reevaluating so that you can continue to grow.