By Doug Bennett aka The Goals Guy® with special guest Georgia Kirke

Would it shock you if I said that I was selfish? Would it surprise you to know that being selfish is a trait that, when used appropriately, can Support you to create a happier life for you and your loved ones?

I’m a big believer in “happy wife, happy life”, but I also know that that can only happen if I feel happy and content, so I enlist the support of the team at Write Business Results (WBR) to help me get my books, blogs and podcasts out into the world (which also means that I can have more “me time” and enjoy riding my Harley Davidson!). 

I recently interviewed the founder of WBR, Georgia Kirke, on the Goals Do Come True podcast (click here to listen in) because I wanted to find out how she brings her ideas to reality (especially since her team takes the time to really understand me and makes my work look absolutely fabulous).

WBR supports business leaders to craft and share their message with their ideal clients. In this blog, I’ll reveal three of Georgia’s top tips when it comes to reaching your goals; but first, I want to share one of her big goals, which is to buck the trend when it comes to business.

Why going your own way will help you stand out

Georgia: “When I first started WBR almost seven years ago, I was the person asking the aspiring authors the questions. I was also the editor, the proofreader, and one of my friends was the designer. Now we are a core team of four, and we work with another 15 freelancers, each of whom has a very specific role. 

I wanted to reimagine how to create a financially viable business that wasn’t just about publishing, and one that didn’t need to completely reinvent the wheel. We’re a publishing support business, not a publisher, which is very unusual for a small business in the publishing field. It’s quite a goal to have a business that doesn’t follow the typical industry model! 

It’s enabled me to put the focus back onto our authors and make sure they have an opportunity to share what really matters to them, in a way that delivers high-quality content and builds brand awareness in a credible, intelligent way (while also leading to personal and commercial growth).”

3 ways to set goals that yield results

I love Georgia’s passion for her clients and her business, and one of the things that I really admire is her resilience; in early 2020 she shattered her leg after falling off a climbing wall, but Georgia even found a way to make that experience positive – which is why that ethos has become one of her top three goal-setting tips.

1) Believe that everything is for you

Georgia: “That accident was not in my plan! I couldn’t walk for most of the year and at one point we thought I might lose part of my leg; but even with all that going on, I could see that it happened ‘for me’ rather than ‘to me’, because it stripped my entire life back to the point where I had to focus on what I could do, because there was a period of time that I could barely move.

I realised that I could speak, think and type, and ultimately that’s all I needed to run the business and be able to stay in touch with the people that I love; everything else became a process of healing and recovery. It also became clear that when things are seemingly taken from you, what’s left is really who you are at the core. I realised that even if my life could never go back to how it was before that accident, I still had everything: the people that I love, my purpose and my business.”

Can you imagine how differently my conversation with Georgia would have been if she’d believed that her accident was a terrible thing that robbed her of time and energy? It’s amazing how something as simple as changing the meaning of what happens can impact the rest of our lives.

Georgia’s second tip was perfect, especially since we’re approaching the end of 2022.

2) Create a theme for the year

Georgia: “I really love to indulge in my goal setting. By November each year I’ll start planning what life will look like for the year ahead, and there will be several versions of that that get scrunched up and thrown in the bin because I want to make it as articulate as possible. I like to give each year a theme to keep me on track; my theme for 2023 is ‘simplification’, and I’ll use that to guide me as the year evolves.

I enjoy using apps that send daily notifications about my vision board and goals apps such as Accomplish. I think it’s important to live and breathe your goals so that you’re consistently aligning your actions to your goals.”

I’ve always found that when I’m reaching new milestones en route to my goal, I feel happier and more motivated, which in turn supports my family to feel good (a wonderful side effect). Georgia is also a fan of looking after number one, safe in the knowledge that there’s a positive outward ripple.

3) Be selfish

Georgia: “I’m someone who had a tendency to always put other people before myself. It was brand-new information to me when I heard the analogy of putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others. After a particularly hard time in my early 30s, I made a deal with myself that I would only ever do things that I really wanted to do; self-interest doesn’t have to be a negative thing! 

When it comes to goal setting, you need to be completely selfish; don’t factor anyone else in because then that goal is no longer about you. The key to my contentment is to be unashamedly selfish in everyday life – and that includes the big and small things, because then you’ll be more fulfilled, and the people you love also love it when you’re happy.”

Earlier this year I started to take a Friday off as often as possible, and, as I mentioned before, I feel so much better for having that “me time”. Goal setting is all about creating the life and business of your dreams. Encourage others to do the same, and know that if we’re each practising self-care and following our hearts and dreams, we’ll have so much more fun when we get together!

If you’d like my professional support to help bring your personal or professional goals to reality, why not click here to book a complimentary discovery call with me? And if you have a dream to bring a book into the world and would like the support of Georgia and her team at Write Business Results, get in touch (or download your free content bundle and wave bye bye to writer’s block).