Have you set goals for your digi-scrap business? You probably have a set amount of dollars you want to make, or possibly a number of products you wish to sell. Chances are at some time or another you thought about how many hours of work you wanted to expend each week for your business. Then again — maybe you haven’t.

As you’ve probably heard a kazillion times over, setting goals is an important step towards achieving anything. If you don’t set goals, it’s difficult to know if or when you’ve arrived. Without a goal, how do you even know where it is you are going? Through the years you’ve probably set some long term goals that you are looking to achieve far from now. Then you have your short term goals - the ones that can be achieved in the near future.

Use Milestones to Keep Your Business Moving Forward

Have you ever played the game hop-scotch? This is game familiar to many children. In the game you draw out a diagram of boxes on the ground and number each box. You hop from box to box in consecutive order until you reach the end of the diagram and then turn around and hop back again in a similar method.  An additional challenge in the game comes about when a pebble is tossed into your path and you’re required to pass up (not hop into) that numbered square. While this is thought of as a kids game - it has something important to teach us digi-scrap business owners.

Namely, that if we set small milestones, number each and jump from milestone to milestone in consecutive order, we will eventually meet our long term goal. Sometimes a pebble may get thrown in our path along the way too. But if we jump around it and keep going — eventually we’ll meet our goals. Like in the hop scotch game, sometimes we have to do the same basic steps over and over again in order to reach our final destination.  When going in a direction that seems to be opposite our goal, it’s not a set-back.  It’s merely a strategic move to help us keep our momentum going and accomplish all our milestones.

Design Your Personal Business Hop-Scotch Board

Really….I’m serious here! Make a game of it when striving for your goals and you’ll have more fun along the way and not get discouraged when a pebble gets in your path. A clear path drawn out with numbered milestones will help keep you on track and staying focused as well.  To learn more about a simple way to view your goal setting activities and accomplishing them, check out the camstudio movie titled Striving for Goals the Hop Scotch Method or read through the written description below:

Grab a pencil and a stack of paper squares like the size of sticky notes is perfect.

1. Write out a long term goal you have for your business on one of the squares. Write it as if you’ve already achieved it. For example my long term goal might be: “It’s 1 September 2008 and I’m making $4000 a month with my digi-scrap product sales.”
2. Take a minute to close your eyes and envision yourself actually living that goal. Use the power of your imagination to burn into your senses a strong vision of what your life is like as you see yourself living this goal. You want to really get in touch with what you are going to be experiencing at that point.
3. Now take the slip of paper and set it aside. Don’t ponder it any further.  Trust that your inner self will start finding ways to achieve your goal.  If letting go and allowing your subconscious mind take over is a hard concept for you to consider, I recommend you pick up the book written by Joe Vitale called:  The Attractor Factor.  The writings of this book will help you learn how to “let go” and allow yourself to achieve goals much easier than ever before.
4. Use more paper squares and write on each a short-term goal that you hope to accomplish as you are moving towards that long term goal. These will be milestones for you. In my scenario these short term goals might be: “Developed a website that draws in 5000 hits a day.” “Have a full inventory of personally designed digi-art products, self-written e-publications, and affiliate products that are providing me with a steady flow of passive income.”
5. Then lay these out so they are in order of how you think you’ll need to accomplish them as you head for your long-term goal.  Keep in mind that sometimes you’ll be working on more than one of the goals at one time.  While at other times your energy will be focused on accomplishing one of them only.
6. Then go back and grab your long-term goal square and place it at the top of your diagram.  You’ve just created your Business Hop-Scotch game board.
7. Now you need to accomplish each sticky note goal by jumping from one to the next, then back again as needed.  In a movement that’s similar to how you play hop-scotch.  If a pebble is thrown into your path, just keep skipping along on the other squares, working the other activities - moving forward and keeping your momentum going in your business activities. Go back to that milestone when whatever was blocking your path before, has been removed.
8. Keep hopping along with your business activities and achieving your small goals as you go.  Each time you’ve reached a new milestone - stop the presses and celebrate!  Take some time to feel good about your accomplishment and share time with family and friends.  

Before you know it you will have maneuvered back and forth along the path of your goals and you’ll finally reach the point of actualizing that long-term goal! When you do - you’ve won your personal business hop-scotch game.  After accomplishing your big goal, you may decide it’s time for you to play another round using a new set of goals, or simply continue skipping along in your successful business.

Whether you make a game of setting your business goals or you take a more serious approach, be sure to give yourself some in between milestones, celebrate the moments when you reach them and it won’t be long before you’ll find yourself skipping to the bank!

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