The year is ending soon, did you meet your goals? No? Is it stressing you out?

Today I want to share my goal setting method for high achieving individuals and teams.

I call it the MIN-MAX Goal Setting method designed to help you strive for growth while not burning out.

Here’s my problem, let me know if you can relate. I’ve always believed in setting best-case scenario goals – if you reach for the stars you’ll land in the clouds – sort of thing. And it worked… until it didn’t.

You see, once I became a founder I started setting very ambitious goals to push the business forward, and guess what? Most months I failed to meet those goals. Like, 9/12 months.

Can you guess what happened next? I began to feel like a failure. For YEARS, I never hit my goal number (because it was so out of touch with reality) but even though I knew my goals were ambitious, I still felt like I was never good enough.

This led to self-doubt and burnout.

My goal-setting was no longer serving me.

I wanted my goals to give me something to strive for while also telling me when I was off track.

That’s when I came up with the MIN-MAX Goal Setting process.

Here’s how it works.

The MIN-MAX Goal Setting Method

Set The Min

For every goal, set a minimum floor you need to achieve to know things are going ok. This isn’t a worst-case scenario, but the minimum you need to feel positive momentum. Anything below this floor and you know something is wrong.

Set the Max

Now, set your pie-in-the-sky vision of what you would love to achieve. This is where you put those ambitious goals.

Evaluating

Now here comes the real mental shift. Success falls any where between the MIN and the MAX. As long as you hit that minimum goal, you should feel good. Give yourself a pat on the back and celebrate.

Here’s an example.

CONTEXT: I’ll set a goal to grow my e-commerce sales next month. Last month they were $18k.

GOAL SETTING: I’ll set a MIN of $20k and a MAX of $36k

I’ll now set up a strategy and tactics to achieve the MAX target. At the end of the month we do $25k in sales.

EVALUATION: Success! We sold $5k more than our min goal. The new strategy and tactics are working, but just taking some more time to work, and that’s ok.

Previously I would’ve set my goal at the $36k mark only, and then I would’ve failed to meet my goal by $11k. And let me tell you, I would feel terrible.

Now what if I did $19k? Then I know the strategy and tactics I implemented aren’t working and I may need to change course.

WRAP UP

See the difference? It’s a mental shift to bring more positivity and success into your business.

Entrepreneurship is a long journey. Set yourself up to reach success and feel good every week and you’ll continue on much longer. Set yourself up for failure each week and you’ll burn out faster.

The key to this whole thing is to genuinely be happy with meeting your minimum goal. As Alli Ball says, it’s not important if you meet your goal or not, it’s important if you learn and grow on the journey.

I’d love to hear what you think. Does MIN/MAX Goal Setting resonate with you? Are you going to try it out? I’m here to support you.