Interior Designer Goals: 5 Mistakes You’re Making

When it comes to interior designer goals it’s not like any other profession. We are creatives and as such we tend to lose focus quickly, chase more bright shiny opportunities than other professionals, and unwittingly set ourselves up for disappointment because we take on too much. Sound familiar?

To get your year off on the right foot, here are the 5 mistakes I see most often with interior designer goals and how to solve them quickly and easily.

#1 Setting Too Many Goals

Honestly, you really only want to establish a single goal for your business in any given year. That giant list you’ve created of interior designer goals is really not goals at all, but action steps, possible strategies and tactics to achieve one thing. What is your one thing? Is it to increase your revenues? Do you want to improve the quality of your clients? Would you like to focus on more time off?

It’s likely you have a laundry list of interior designer goals that includes things like updating your website, refocusing your brand identity, launching FB ads, scheduling your social media, getting published. Those aren’t goals, those are tactics. They may be part of how you achieve your goal, but they aren’t goals in and of themselves. They don’t answer an important “why?”

#2 Failing to Have a Clear Why

The right interior designer goals answer the big question WHY in your business. Let’s take updating your website, why are you doing that? It’s likely because you want more business, better clients and a more beautiful brand and you want all of that because you want to increase revenues! So your goal is to increase revenues and updating your website is just one strategic step to get there.

Let’s say you think your goal is to build your team. Why do you want to do that? The reality is that you want more time off while still maintaining or growing your business, building your team is the strategic path to get there. The goal is that you want more time off (and why is because you are feeling burned out, want more time with family and friends.)

#3 Forgetting to Make It Measurable 

Interior designer goals must be measurable to be achievable. That means that if your goal is increased revenue you want to establish either a percent increase you’ll target or you can establish a dollar amount you want to achieve. By the same token, if you wanted more time off, let’s make that real and quantifiable. How much time off?

Do you want to reduce your work hours from 65 to 55 each week? Would you like to take a four day weekend each month? Do you want to take a week’s vacation every quarter? Is a big ass 3-5 week vacation every year on your wish list? (That’s a ton of fun, it took me 5 years on the fast track to near burn out to set this goal and it totally rocked!)

#4 Making Goals that Are Unbelievable 

Specific interior designer goals are the better than vague ones.  You want to be able to feel and picture your goal achieved in your mind’s eye.  If you can’t visualize it, it won’t happen. This has to be a stretch for you yet not so far that you don’t believe it.

We all fight limiting beliefs all the time. The key is to set a goal that feels audacious and exhilarating and still achievable. When you set a goal that, in your heart of hearts, you don’t think is achievable, you’ll simply end up discouraged and disappointed.

#5 Creating a Rich Reward 

Imagine it’s one year from now and you’ve achieved your big juicy goal. Do you just give yourself a pat on the back and keep going or are you properly celebrating and rewarding yourself for work well done and goal crushed? Having a celebration to look forward to will keep you going through difficult times. Define your celebration before you dive into goal achievement.

Your celebration may be a public event and shared on social channels since your goal was to double your revenues and you did it. Or, you may keep it quiet and make it an escape just for two to a luxury resort because your goal was more time off.

Yes, there is a lot more to goal setting, and if you’d like expert guidance and strategic help in setting totally achievable interior designer goals, get in touch.

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