Short-Term vs. Long-Term Goals

Short-term goals vs long-term goals. Which one is better for growing your practice?

A few years back when I finally got serious about being healthy, I made a deal with myself.

When I woke up in the morning, I told myself I needed to get out of bed and immediately put my workout clothes on and either get on the bike or put on my running shoes.

It didn’t matter how far I walk/jogged or how far I peddled on the bike.

Anything that I did would be better than lying in bed and making excuses about why I couldn’t work out.

A funny thing happened that summer, I began to wonder.

What would happen if I went one more block?

One more mile?

Two more miles?

By the end of that summer, I did my very first 5K.

I began to wonder what else I was really capable of.

Not wanting to lose the momentum I bought a treadmill and put it in my home office.

I love it!

It has a great monitor on it that is connected to Google Maps and I can choose where I want to be walking. Paris, Italy, Ireland, anywhere in the world.

I can even choose which trainer I would be following.

My thought process was…if I can’t wake up and walk across the hall to work out, then I have bigger problems than I realized.

After a winter of consistency on the treadmill, a wonderful thing happened.

When springtime came around and it was time to return to the great outdoors, I was ready.

There was no starting all over again as there was in years past.

Sure, there’s a big difference to your ankles and knees going from treadmill to pavement.

But the endurance was already there.

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Goals – Which is better?

Now I could set bigger goals.

I could decide to set a goal for speed.

Or perhaps I could expand on the goal of endurance and work to go further.

Maybe I would work on yet another possibility and combine my 3 favorite forms of exercise (swimming, biking, and running) and train for a triathlon.

This one is still on my bucket list.

However, the important point here is, there is no shame in starting with short-term goals.

Short-term goals feed that sense of gratification we need.

When we set a short-term goal and accomplish it.

That dopamine and endorphin rush we feel gives us that measure of self-esteem to create more goals.

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Goals – Which will you choose?

So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed about your marketing, might I suggest setting short-term goals?

Maybe you want to begin blogging.

Start by writing one short blog and putting it out there. That may fuel curiosity about keywords you can attach to them.

Perhaps you want to get started with video but you’re intimidated by being on camera.

Create a short one-minute video and put it on Tik-Tok.

Then tell yourself you must do this once a week for a month.

I think you may find that the more you do it, the more you feel better about doing the task.

Hey, the videos I created, in the beginning, were AWFUL. I was stiff, said “um” way too many times, and babbled like a crazy person.

You can find some of them on my YouTube channel if you want a laugh.

But the point here is to just get started. Set up the parameters and rules for yourself and begin.

The wonderful thing about short-term goals is that they lead to long-term goals and victories.

I’d love to hear in the comments below what short-term marketing goals you want to create to market your private practice.

Need a coach to guide you through it?

Set up a discovery call and let’s talk it out.