During this brief (aprox. 10 minute) video, I‘ll discuss how you can easily start and run your own Goals Group. I’ll talk about the who, the when, the where and the how in order to stay accountable to getting where you not only want to be, but also where you are meant to be.
Goal setting is something I actively started doing when I became an entrepreneur in 2009. I’d write goals down and put deadlines to them. Some goals got achieved; some did not. About 2 and a half years ago I decided I wanted to do more around goal setting – and I wanted to work with a group of women entrepreneurs. I wanted and needed more accountability. So I did some research, created my own group and here I share my tips on how you can start one yourself!
To quote Heather Stang, she references Napoleon Hill’s classic book Think and Grow Rich; “the author defines the ‘Master Mind’ as the ‘coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.’ Napoleon Hill suggests that by bringing two minds together, you tap into a ‘third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind.’”
A mastermind or goal/accountability group can apply to business, family, school, personal life goals or many others. For my goal group, our main to focus was to be on our businesses, but we had the freedom to work on family and personal life goals as well.
So let’s go through all of the steps…
Number One – In my opinion, the most important when starting a group: The Who.
Finding mutual beneficiaries. Make a list of who you’d love to have in your group. If you can, be sure they have these qualities:
- Similar drive and commitment
- Diverse skill sets
- Problem solving
As far as the number of participants: my research stated anywhere from 3 to 6 to be a good amount. We had 6 members.
My presentation in illustration form! Drawing by Carolyn Ellis
Step 2: The When. Agree on frequency of the meetings. Once I had my members, we went over the best times and how often we’d meet. For us, Tuesday nights every 6 weeks was the consensus, but once a month, and every other week are common as well. Someone I know had an accountability partner and they spoke once a week for an hour.
We decided to keep our meetings 2 hours long. Start time was 7pm and we ended promptly at 9pm. We all decided that if we wanted to do any socializing we’d arrive 30 minutes beforehand and stay 30 mins afterward. We used a timer for the ‘hot seat’ at 15 mins each.
Step 3: The Where. Meetings can be held anywhere: someone’s home, at a café, restaurant, library, or over Skype. Currently I’m in a mastermind where one woman lives in Luxembourg, another is in Alberta, and the 3 others are in the States. For my original group we were all in Toronto and took turns hosting in our homes.
Step 4: The How. I met up with a friend for guidance who was already in her own group and she gave me a copy of their worksheet. I also looked online and found countless worksheets and books to support goal setting. I let each member of our group choose which one they wanted to use as their master worksheet.
When doing the worksheets remember to ask yourselves:
‘Why do I want these goals? What are the benefits I want to see?
‘What are the action steps necessary to achieve my goal?’
Give yourself a timeline and when you go home, schedule it. If it’s not scheduled – it will not get done!
Don’t forget to ask for help.
Stay accountable.
But don’t be too hard on yourself. If you miss a goal get back up and keep going. Or perhaps it’s a sign that the goal is just not as important as you originally thought it was.
Create an agenda and make it unique to your group. Ours was quite simple. We’d meditate for 2 minutes at the beginning of every meeting, do our 6 hot seats, and then close with picking a date for the next one.
At our first-ever meeting, we wrote a letter to our future self to be opened in one year’s time. We turned this into an annual activity to be done again at the beginning of the 2nd year. It was fun to see what goals we’d achieved, yet also how we changed along the way.
During the Hot Seat we’d go over the following questions:
What was your commitment and did You Do It?
If not: Why? Will you be committing to the same action step or creating a one for this?
If yes, did this action move you forward towards your goal?
What is your new, or continued, or revised commitment?
Begin with “The next most important step in my business is _______.”
Remember to celebrate your achievements!!! Recently I “graduated” from my Toronto Goal Group. I now have a coach and with my virtual mastermind – I feel I’m pretty covered.
Our Toronto Goal Group was interviewed and featured in the Financial Post!
What I learned from this 1st goal group experiment.
In my opinion, first and foremost for entrepreneurs:
- Everyone in the group should either all be in the same business OR all in completely different businesses – but still like-minded in terms of values
Secondly:
- Candidates need corresponding levels of ambition and motivation. Equally balanced drive and commitment to goal-setting is super important!
Back in November I stumbled upon the ‘LifePurpose Playbook’ for sale at a conference in Toronto. I was so impressed by it that I contacted it’s creator – Judy Machado-Duque who – lucky for me – also lives in T.O., and told her so myself! Since then we’ve met up for coffee and gone to events together often. It turns out we have much in common around interests, and goals!
Judy also creates coloring worksheets and graciously offered to collaborate with me on one specifically for creating your own goal group. If you’d like to receive your own ‘Goal Group Formula’ worksheet for free – please click here to download and we’ll get you set up!
Goal setting can really be a lot of fun when done with an accountability group, and so I highly recommend it!
Two questions:
- How do you currently stay accountable to your goals?
- What was your biggest goal that you ever planned and subsequently accomplished?
Hi Lisa,
I really enjoyed your video and article. Quick question: do you recommend being in more than one mastermind?
Hi Cinthia,
I think being in more than one is totally fine! In fact there are so many types out there. Just being part of a Facebook group is sometimes considered a mastermind. Or in the case of myself – I go to a co-working and wellness space once a week, and I love what happens there when a bunch of like-minded women get together. It does indeed feel like a master *mind* that we are all part of. If you’ve got different interests, or different people that you feel you’d like to get more from re: goals or accountability – then most definitely go for it!