The New GKM: On Setting Goals and Being You

 

Do you know what my least favourite word is right now?

Should.

Recently, a life coach friend of mine asked me to help her with a project. ‘What were the questions you had when you first started your own business? What advice do you think would have helped you back then?’ My answer was simple.

I really wish someone would have truly emphasised the importance of just being me, and just being happy.

Whatever your business turns out to be, and wherever it takes you, being happy and true to yourself are your top priorities. No questions asked.

 

In my opinion, aspects of the travel blogging world as we know it today are a mess. It’s a push-and-pull tornado of all these different pieces of advice and information.

 

You should be scheduling your tweets.

You should have a clearly defined niche.

You should only be using Instagram for photos you take on a phone, in the moment.

You should have a monthly editorial calendar set up in advance in order to organise your posts.

 

Notice that pesky word again? Should, should, should.

 

The only time I want to hear the word ‘should’ is when it’s put in this sentence:

You should do what makes you happy.

 

 

Whose best practice is it anyway?

 

I’ll wilfully admit that these points are generally useful. Scheduling tweets can save you time, having a specific niche will make your brand seem more focused, and creating an editorial calendar will help you to be organised. I’m not saying that these things don’t work, I’m saying that this is very general advice.

It is best practice – but is it best for you?

Smart business sense is being aware of the industry you’re trying to be a part of, understanding how that industry flows and fluctuates, and keeping an eye on your peers and competitors. However, there is such a thing as information overload – listening to what everyone has to say, all the time. It rapidly leads to concerning yourself with the actions of others, and how they are achieving their goals. This might help you to an extent, but it can also clog things up. I see it happening all the time, and I too have struggled with this in the travel blogging community. I’ve been guilty of listening to other people’s shoulds.

 

As you slide into this deeper, things start to get seriously complicated. You begin to take in all this information and spend your time trying to absorb each piece to figure out how you can apply it to your business.

There are thousands of different ways to do one thing – different combinations of how to organise your content, set up your site, run your social media – and by listening to too many other people and other pieces of information, you start to forget why it is you’re doing it in the first place. The reasoning becomes ‘because this is what everyone else is doing’, not ‘because this will directly help me to achieve my success’.

 

Your ultimate goal becomes blocked and forgotten behind a giant brick wall of processes, and that is the very last place you want your goals to be.

And happiness? Most of the time, it barely comes into the equation.

 

Turning Best Practice on Its Head

 

I propose turning that process around. For the sake of ease, I’m laying this out in three steps.

 

Step One: Imagine your goal

 

And imagine what that goal for your business would be if nothing stood in your way. No logic, or reason, or limitations – imagine what it is that you want without thinking about actually getting there. The end result, best case scenario, wants that echo inside you which are usually crushed by reality.

What would you love your business to be if anything were possible?

By thinking of your goal in this way, it will naturally incorporate your dreams and happiness – that one should that really matters. With this as your foundation, your well-being will be a part of every decision you take from here on out. Make your goal, and thus your happiness, the beginning of the process – the root of each part of the journey from now on.

 

Step Two: Investors

 

Who is going to invest in you?

Now that you have a mission, an ideal, think about who is going to help you get there; your audience and people interested in your product.

Who are they, where are they, what are their interests, and what can you give them that they don’t already have?

Having a vivid picture of these people in your mind is a necessary asset to your business and brand. They’ll help you to create your happiness.

 

Step Three: Execution

 

Now is the time to start thinking about that best practice, and this is where you can get selective.

By having your goal laid out first, you’ll quickly realise that not all of that best practice is going to actually apply to you. You can now de-clutter all the information and choose parts that will make you reach your goal.

By having a clear picture of your audience in mind, some of that best practice isn’t going to be relevant to finding them either. Your focus is sharpened only on the things you and your audience are interested in, cutting more baggage and wasted time.

 

In the travel blogging world, it can be applied like this: someone who wants to run a blog to enable them to travel the world for free should be listening to different sets of best practice as someone who is running a blog because they want to get into professional travel writing. Some small parts will overlap, but essentially you’re looking and two different goals and audiences, and therefore two different processes.

Unfortunately, for the most part the information we’re given as travel bloggers – the ‘this is how you run a successful travel blog’ info – isn’t presented in such a way. It’s blanket advice from different people, with different goals, and it becomes extremely confusing to digest.

 

 

Consider taking these three steps every day. Instead of waking up and leaping right into the processes (or going on social media!), give just 10 minutes first thing in the morning, each morning, to imagining that goal. That beautiful, unadulterated goal. Take a moment to picture your audience too.

Now look at the time you have available that day. Write out a list of things you are going to do in that time that will directly help you to achieve that goal, and talk to that audience.

I believe that this list will be more focused, efficient, and driven than anything you would have done had you considered it all the other way around.

Your goal is not solely the end result – it is the beginning, middle and the end, bringing your happiness along with it through the journey.

 

What does this have to do with the new GKM?

 

This might all sound like very elementary business advice but I see it forgotten in my industry every day. I feel like I’m looking at blogger activity on Facebook, among too much chatter and too much noise, watching people drowning in too much general advice. I’ve been one of them, and I know I’m not alone.

I’m tying these issues into a post about my relaunch because, in all honesty, I’m absolutely exhausted.

I’m tired of trying to take in all this advice because I’m being fed the opinion that it’s what I need to be doing to be successful. But the truth is, I don’t want to spend any time scheduling all my tweets out for the next week. I don’t want to make sure I have a strong presence on every single social media platform, and having 10,000 followers on all of them isn’t going to give me my goal. I don’t want to give my travel experiences over to someone else by participating in a press trip and following a pre-set itinerary. I don’t begrudge the people that do, it isn’t wrong to want those things – but it’s just not me.

 

So what do I want?

I want to write.

It’s as simple as that.

 

Sadly, it got to the point a few months ago where I was spending 90% of my time doing all the things I didn’t want to do, and only 10% on actually writing, because I thought that’s what it took for me to be successful. I thought that’s the way it is, so I just have to get on with it.

This reflected in the quality of my writing, and putting together a post became a chore because I was creating things that I thought were most likely to get shared. I’ve put my name on articles that I now cannot stand the sight of. I didn’t have any time to actually develop my writing skills, because I was too concerned about writing something that will persuade someone to click share, because that’s the most popular blogging mentality. Yes, it’s good to have your work shared, of course, but for me, not at the price of quality.

I feel like an idiot. I would consider myself strong-willed, but I took on all this advice that just wasn’t me, and I find myself disappointed by not seeing this sooner.

I’ve been blogging for four years, and for the last two of them I’ve been doing things that I don’t want to do because I’ve been listening to too many people telling me to do them. My goal is to be a writer – for a magazine I highly respect and am passionate about – so why the hell am I not spending most of my time writing?

 

‘Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.’

– Steve Jobs

 

Well said, Steve.

So, it’s about time I started to love what I do.

I want to write stories about travel. I want not to inspire people with lists or how-tos, but with stories that document specific experiences about the people I meet and the places I see. Tangible, simple stories that connect us both to the vast unknown and to our neighbours. Every inch of this world tells a thousand of them, and I’d like to do my best at trying to tell you as many as I can. I also want to write about food and books, share my photographs, tell humorous tales, and motivate readers with pieces about life and all its challenges – but in one way or another all these stories will be about travel, because to me, travel is everything.

I want these to be stories for the insatiably curious, people who question why and are willing to look beyond a place, a person, a photo, a street, and do their best to understand it. The kind of people who want more from their online experiences with travel than just a few clicks and a scan of a page, who are happy to take 20 minutes out of their day to read a good story, appreciate it, reflect on it, and let it ignite in them a desire to adventure.

That’s it. That’s what I want Gotta Keep Movin’ to be, and those are the people I want to speak to. That is what my goal would be if anything were possible, and thinking about it makes me euphoric.

 

 

Things are looking a little different around here. My site redesign is a reflection of my blogging de-clutter. You might not see all the features and bells or whistles that you see on many travel blogs, but that’s because I want content – my travel stories – to be the full driving force behind Gotta Keep Movin’. My old posts will still be up on this website for some time to come – the lists, the guides, the reviews – but you might see them disappear over time, and be replaced with more storytelling. If you’re someone who thinks they might want to hear them, I even have a new subscribe feature – and all you’ll get from me is notifications about the new stories I have to share.

Looks like I have my work cut out. I know I can write a good story, but I want to be able to write an insanely good story. So I’m going to get selective with the people I listen to, and take the time to develop. This website will be a journal of that development. I’m a firm believer that no matter how close you get to the top, there is always room to grow.

So world, watch me grow.

 

Embrace the Journey

 

But enough about me.

It’s easy at this point for me to sit here and tell you how to reach your goals as my own are so clear in my mind. I know some of you might be thinking that yours aren’t as vivid. That said, remember that it’s taken me four years to get to this point. Four years of trial and error to figure out what the heck it is I want and how I want to reach it.

If you don’t know your specific goal right now, that’s okay. Even just an inclining will help you get started, and that’s when you turn to your happiness to help out.

 

What makes you happy and what are your passions – how can you transform that into a business?

 

I like writing, so I started blogging. After all these ups and downs, trying things one way and then trying them another, I eventually came to this goal, refusing to give up on what makes me happy even though I have been very close several times.

It’s good for it to be a journey like that. Those unhappy moments help you to tune into your goals even more, and I may not have got to this point without them. Not every moment is going to fill you will joy, and there will be times when you’re just not in the mood to do anything. As long as those moments don’t overwhelm the parts that satisfy you, it’s natural. By staying acutely aware of your happiness every step of the way, your goal will shift and change with it – and that’s a good thing! You’re figuring it out.

Your happiness and goals reflect and bounce off each other, so if one’s not working you might need to take a look at the other to find a solution.

The two are like train tracks – running parallel to help it all move in the same direction.

 

‘Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.’

– Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO

 

This final part of this long essay is a word to both of us, because taking this change and going against a lot of what I’ve been taught is terrifying. So this is what I want to say to you and I both.

Imaging that goal as part of Step One in the process might fill you with fear. Depending on how adventurous you get with your goal, it may feel like you’re dreaming of the impossible. That said, I’m pretty sure we all know that anyone in history who has created something new and proven the impossible possible has been told at some point along the way that they were an idiot and that it couldn’t be done.

If there isn’t a way, find a way.

If it doesn’t exist, bring it into existence.

Fall over, makes mistakes, and keep building things until something sticks.

And for God’s sake, be happy.

 

I’ve been falling over for quite some time, and I will certainly fall over again. But I can promise you one thing – I will get back up.

 

 

Welcome to the new Gotta Keep Movin’.
Thanks for coming along for the ride!