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Ep. 10: Finding Balance: Goal Setting and Timelines for Small Business Owners
84 Plays1 year ago
Join hosts Chloe and Darci as they explore how to set realistic timelines for building your brand without burning out.
In this episode, they discuss the common struggle of managing self-imposed deadlines and balancing client work with personal business development. They share their own experiences with procrastination, missing goals, and learning to give themselves grace when things don’t go as planned. You'll also hear about their year-long journey of launching Brand Jam and how they stayed motivated despite setbacks.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by endless to-do lists and arbitrary goals, this episode is what you need. It offers practical advice on how to set timelines that work for you and celebrate your progress, even if it’s slower than expected.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Thinking about starting a podcast and not sure where to start? Reach out to NMN founder, Briar Harvey
Follow Brand Jam:
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/brandjampod/
Threads https://www.threads.net/@brandjampod
Website https://www.brandjampod.com
Follow Chloe at Chloe Arielle Design:
Website https://www.chloearielle.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chloearielle
Threads https://www.threads.net/@chloearielle
Follow Darci at Sweet Tooth Creative
Website https://sweettoothcreative.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Brand Jam
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Brand Jam, the brand strategy podcast for colorful and compassionate brands. I'm Darcy, the candy-fueled copywriter behind Sweet Tooth Creative. And I'm Chloe, owner of Conscious Design Studio, Chloe Ariel Design. On the show, we'll be talking about what it's really like to build a brand from scratch when you're a business of one. And how to find what works for you so you can create a brand that grows with your business without burning yourself out. At Brand Jam, we believe there's no one right way to be, and embracing our differences enhances the experience for everyone.
00:00:32
Speaker
So if you're a fan of bold flavored branding and are trying to do business better, come hang out. We're so glad you're here.
00:00:41
Speaker
As with all
Personal Methods and Self-Compassion
00:00:42
Speaker
things, you find what works for you. Don't let us tell you it has to be this one way. Don't let anyone tell you it has to be this one way. It's important to like recognize when you do do things that you wanted to do and give yourself grace when you don't.
00:01:00
Speaker
Hey everybody,
Timelines and Goal-Setting
00:01:01
Speaker
welcome to the final episode of season one for Brand Jam. We made it, Chloe. yeah Today we're talking about timelines. they're you know If you're like me, they might be the bane of your existence, but just generally like how you think about what you get done in what amount of time, obviously timelines can be super important when it comes to client projects, but I think with DIY branding, there's a lot of self-imposed timelines that maybe aren't serving us. So that's why we want to talk about that today. Yeah, we want you to be able to build your brand without burning yourself up.
00:01:42
Speaker
Sometimes but we get really excited about something and we make a lot of goals and timelines and it's all really great. But then when it comes to actually doing the thing, it's not always super realistic and sometimes sticking to those timelines and milestones can just lead straight to burnout.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah. And
Struggles in DIY Branding
00:02:05
Speaker
you just end up beating yourself up and that doesn't help you make progress. So today we're going to talk a little bit about how we manage that now compared to, you know, when we were first starting out.
00:02:19
Speaker
Because I don't know about you, Chloe, but for me, i I struggle with both. I struggle with thinking I should have this done already, this should only take me so long, and then of course it's never that simple. Or I'll be like, I'll get into hyper-focus mode and spend way too long on one thing.
00:02:40
Speaker
and then I'm like why did I waste so much time on that um and really it was probably my subconscious being like whoa but if we waste time on this fun design thingy then you don't have to go do the scary next step that comes after it so it's a learning process as with so many things when you're first starting out and building your business but finding kind of your flow and identifying where you're getting yourself stuck and where you're letting other people make you feel bad for going a certain speed. that getting Getting all of that out of your head and finding confidence in your own method, I think, is kind of where we want to get to.
00:03:21
Speaker
hu
Debunking Strict Deadlines
00:03:22
Speaker
And it's not something that happens overnight. Like, I mean, I still struggle with timing and timelines and it's, yeah, you're always, as with life, learning more, growing, developing things and just figuring things out. Yep. They get to evolve just like everything else. So progress is the goal, but like there's no certain amount of progress or There's no, I mean, deadlines are so frequently arbitrary and often don't serve you. So I mean, sometimes they do. Chloe asked me for a deadline all the time. I do. just I need a deadline or I will procrastinate until the last. I mean, I still will. That's why I have to set fake deadlines for myself so that I can get anything done in the world. But also fake deadlines are great because then they give you
00:04:12
Speaker
buffer time if you procrastinate the first deadline then you aren't completely screwed for the second deadline or the real one yeah so hey maybe you need a bunch of fake deadlines maybe you're like me and i honestly almost never have deadlines i have kind of like phases that I'm like, this phase should take about this long type of thing milestones. I guess I go by more than deadlines, but I certainly, I can relate back, you know, years ago in college, like deadlines did motivate me to a certain extent. It just wasn't great for my nervous system. But as with all things like, you know, what you find what works for you. Don't let us tell you it has to be this one way. Don't let anyone tell you it has to be this one way.
00:04:56
Speaker
And I think it
Client Expectations vs Personal Growth
00:04:57
Speaker
differs too, depending on what your business is. like When you're planning things out, like client work versus my business are two different things. Like client work, I'm going to get it done when it needs to get done. yeah But working on my business are the things that tends to get put on the back burner. And those are the kind of the things that we're talking about today that are really hard to progress sometimes.
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think probably by the time we've started a business, maybe I'm wrong, but most people, you know, when they're being held accountable by someone else can deliver or I hope they can deliver. But this is definitely more about, you know, all these different things that you have to develop as you're developing your brand, you know, like The identity, yes, but also the systems and processes in your business and you know what tech you use and what this and that and you know all the little problems that pop up and you have to find a solution for and then hope that that solution grows with your business. It's a lot
Balancing Responsibilities to Prevent Burnout
00:05:58
Speaker
to juggle as a small business owner and there's a lot of learning required and learning can be slow. so This is more about kind of like figuring out how to juggle all of that but also like keep it moving.
00:06:10
Speaker
you know Yeah, it's all about finding a middle ground and there's a really fine line. um It's like setting goals is really important, but also if you're on the edge of burnout and it's an arbitrary goal that you've set for yourself that no one else knows about, the world is not going to stop turning.
00:06:29
Speaker
because you missed this goal, but it will save your mental health, like you can probably miss that deadline. However, it's important to make sure that you don't stop progressing because you missed one of your goals.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah. And it's it's really, I mean, it's a skill that you have to really like build up over time to be able to juggle long-term goals and short-term goals and integrate that into what you're doing from day to day. Like it's a balance and finding it is, you know, not simple. So because there's always, you know, more you people have demands put on them all the time, you know,
00:07:07
Speaker
people have responsibilities outside of just building their business, caregiving responsibilities or you know taking care of them their own health or you know big events pop up and you're like, ah okay, great, now I'm also handling that. like It's a lot going on. So if you feel overwhelmed, it's not you. That's how things are, but you can get better about managing it and it can feel better.
00:07:32
Speaker
if you keep looking for that balance. So basically set goals, but don't let missing them stop you from progressing. you know Watch for things that are wasting your time or you're using to procrastinate, but you know also be gentle and supportive with yourself. It's important to like recognize when you do do things that you that you wanted to do. Yeah, give yourself credit. And give yourself grace when you don't. Yeah, give yourself credit and give yourself grace. I like that. And expect things to take a lot longer than you you expect them to take, or especially expect them to take longer than other people say they'll take, especially if they're selling you something.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yes. It just reminds me of like other people are experts in things if they say it's going to take a certain amount of time. Like it reminds me of like when you look up a recipe online and it's like, oh, this took me 20 minutes to build this entire soup. And then I do it and I'm like three hours later still chopping vegetables and like, wait a second. It takes me 20 minutes to chop a carrot. Yes. Yes.
Variables in Brand-Building Timelines
00:08:32
Speaker
Relatable. So like all, really all, you know,
00:08:37
Speaker
Online marketing advice should come with a disclaimer of like your mileage may vary. There's too many variables too many, you know privileges people hold oppressions people Experience levels of experience itself levels of support other obligations. It's all you know, there's unfortunately Rarely an easy button So yeah, give yourself grace, give yourself credit for what you do get done, even if it's less than you you know wanted it to be. And again, it's a work in progress. I think this podcast itself is a good example of Darcy and I working through this process. Totally.
00:09:17
Speaker
i mean we're Okay, we're on ah we did 10 episodes for this first season, and they're half an hour each. So you're like, oh, what did that take? Maybe a month to record or something? No. Listen, listen.
00:09:30
Speaker
real talk. I first reached out to Chloe about starting the podcast in April of 2023. For the record right now, it is October 2024. Yes, exactly. Thank you. yes so To give you an idea, yes so it's today it's October 2024. First reached out to Chloe about co-hosting with my little crazy idea in April of 2023. I think we started recording in September of that same year, 2023. We initially finished recording what we thought was going to be the whole first season by around like the beginning of November, I think. And then we published episode one in May of this year.
00:10:14
Speaker
So again, it's October. We're sort of publishing in May. We've been flying by the seat of our pants for a lot of it. I mean, I like planning. So the planning was fine, but I've never recorded a podcast either. I mean, I've been a guest. No, it's not the same thing as creating your own. So and like we did have help in, you know, at certain stages. for Shout out Briar Harvey at ah the Neurodivergent Media Network. She was awesome and helped us get started but there's still just so much to learn as you go and I mean I don't know Chloe what do you think about us learning as we go?
Podcast Creation Journey
00:10:52
Speaker
I mean yeah there was I mean recording it we were like oh yeah we have this plan we don't we want to talk about no big deal for the first part of it recording that's why we were able to like do that relatively quickly compared to the rest of the timeline and then
00:11:07
Speaker
It was like, wait, yeah i mean even that though. Even the recording, like the early recording sessions are mostly like us giggling, us being like, Oh, I messed that up. So, so much, so much editing for poor clothes. Yeah, which then led to the editing process.
00:11:26
Speaker
um which always took longer than I thought it was going to take. it's still I still haven't mastered the timeline of that yet, um and hopefully one day we will be able to outsource that. But for now, I'm setting fake deadlines and doing my best to make them.
00:11:43
Speaker
Yes, and I'm trying to be supportive by not messing up the recording as much. But that being said, we are recording episode 10 because things didn't go as planned. We had to rerecord episode nine because the file got corrupted. We combined two episodes at one point. So our nice little round 10 episode season that we recorded last fall ended up being nine episodes.
00:12:06
Speaker
And then we were like, whoa, should we do a 10th episode? And I was like, sure, let's make it about timelines. Because, you know, it's in that room. Yeah. And I mean, there was so much we had to like research and stuff and just even like picking a platform. It's just the amount of calls we had going back and forth about just the publishing and recording software. Yes. Yes. So many notes about that.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and that's how it is with anything that you're doing for the first time. you're going to be You think, oh, make a podcast. I need 10 episodes at 20 to 40 minutes a thing. like How long could that take me? Guess what, my friend?
00:12:47
Speaker
So much longer than you think. That being said, I'm glad we did it. Me too. And I think the important thing with our process that we were good at taking turns um backing each other up when we needed to and like we're I guess we were, we gave each other credit and we also gave each other grace, um but we held each other accountable too.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yes, I personally had a lot of anxiety in the beginning about, you know even though I knew Chloe was a nice person, we you know weren't weren't as close then. like She was just my internet design friend. But I just felt like our vibes were good together and that you know we had attempted a collaboration prior to that for on another thing and it hadn't worked out. and Actually, I was like encouraged by the how that went. like Nobody got salty about it. Everyone was understanding about life happens things pop up and that clap didn't work out that help me feel secure enough to be like alright do you want to try and do this thing cuz I am not someone who's like I've always wanted to have a podcast so it's a little bit of work for me to feel comfortable being this out front and
00:13:57
Speaker
Then you also have, you know, I'm chronically ill. I am a parent. You know, life happens. I mean, how many things have happened in this time? Like we've had natural disasters, horrific global events, multiple deaths in our families. You know, my kid has been sick. Like my partner was in the hospital. All this stuff cropped up on both sides for each of us. And it was really lovely that I had a co-host who was so flexible and like, that's fine. Don't worry about it. Take care of what you need to take care of. We'll come back to this. Yeah. and And we always did come back to it. That that was an important thing. Yeah. Because it would have been really easy to be like... Yes, exactly. Okay. We've recorded most of it, but like all this stuff is happening. It's overwhelming. like Let's just give up.
00:14:49
Speaker
And we didn't do that, which I'm really proud of us for. Yes. I, on my own, often when I put something on the back burner for my business, it stays on the back burner. I remember, is that great? I'm like, what? Oh, yeah, I did start that. Oh, that was cool. I come across it like two years later and I'm like, oh, I should have finished this.
00:15:08
Speaker
So that was the nice thing about, you know, having partners. we We were able to be like, okay, we are going to come back to that. Even if we have to be like, is now good? Do you need another week? Like what's, you know, check in with each other, but keep things moving.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, and I think we always like, yeah, when we missed a deadline, we would schedule a new meeting or a new deadline, just to make sure and then we are a new check in and we would check in and be like, Okay, are we feeling it? Can we do it or just to make sure that we kept moving along, even if it was a snail's pace. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. wait I love snails, so it was it was good. But yeah, i think we said I think we both said in the beginning multiple times to each other that like we wanted to do this, but we didn't want it to be something that added a huge amount of stress for either of us. like We both have our own businesses that we had to run and clients that we wanted to take care of. and you know other
00:16:10
Speaker
offers and or, you know, marketing that we wanted to build out that, you know, was a podcast part of the bigger picture. Absolutely. But it wasn't our only focus. And we didn't want to feel pressure from this. We really wanted it to be like, this is great. And, you know, something we really wanted to just have out in the world, because we both talked about we wanted to make the podcast that we wish we could have found years ago.
00:16:39
Speaker
And we did that and it never I never got tired of it. i never you know like It never started to feel bad, which I feel like when there's a lot of pressure or self-imposed timelines that you're not meeting and stuff. like hu So it always felt good to come back to. Even the parts I didn't like. Right. No, I know. There was a lot of anxiety at times. Yes. But not pressure. Right. No. I think that's something maybe we can practice even in our solo businesses too. I'm
Imagining a Business Partner for Better Self-Talk
00:17:14
Speaker
just going to pretend there's a little Darcy now.
00:17:16
Speaker
and And if you're listening, you know, like pretend that you have a business partner and and they're experiencing the thing that you're experiencing and like, how would you react to that? How would you treat them and treat yourself that way? That's a good point. Like I sometimes in my own, like in my personal life with myself talked, I try and actually like turn it around in my head. like what would you say to a friend because how I talk to a friend is so different than how I would talk to myself. And so I've been trying to work on that. And I think that's true of this too. ah Like I think that's a really good point of like, imagine you have a business partner. Like, hey, if that helps, being a solo service provider is weird. Like if an imaginary business partner helps,
00:18:06
Speaker
by all means i i might try that for sure yeah i think i will too yeah so i mean ultimately we kept things fluid but moving forward and i've definitely like taken and some of that came you know from how we ran our businesses in the first place. But I definitely feel like I've grown in that. I've gotten stronger in that from doing the podcast. And that's coming back to my business. And I think I've also gotten better at like distinguishing between times when it's like, I'm on the edge of burnout, or I have no energy, or there's life things happening. And I physically, like recording the podcast would be and detrimental, seems like a big word. But it would not be beneficial. like it would
00:18:52
Speaker
would like when it's not like it has too high of a cost. Or like it's just not going to turn out. like There's times when it's like a lift to record or to do whatever whatever task it is. but and like So it's not always going to feel good. like We weren't like, oh, we feel like recording. So we're only recording when we feel like it.
00:19:13
Speaker
Absolutely not. We totally had to push ourselves to record, but I will say that i I did a better job of judging when I should push myself and when I shouldn't. Exactly. And I think that's a hard thing to distinguish. I mean, I'm chronically ill. I've had I've been chronically ill since I was 20. And so you know at this point in my life, I have over a decade experience of like pacing myself. And that's ultimately what like pacing is in a chronic illness context, is you know determining if an action has too high of a cost for your body. And even with that, it's like... It's taken me so long to get good at it. I really only feel like I've gotten good at it in the last couple of years. so
Fluctuating Personal Capacity
00:20:02
Speaker
and Some of that's because I've also gotten more tools and answers for my health issues that have helped make pacing possible, but it's also so much of a mental thing. so and i think that's true for you know I think it's ah something that carries over and is very applicable in small business.
00:20:20
Speaker
Okay, so basically, ah try to be realistic and learn what you are capable of, what your own capacity is. Well, and, and within that, remember that it fluctuates, everyone's capacity fluctuates. Right. I guess instead of learning what your capacity is, try to be aware in the moment that you're making decisions where your capacity is. Yeah, and and practice prioritizing both short and long term goals because like that takes time to figure out the balance. So like understanding when you are prioritizing tasks, you know, how the thing you want to do actually impacts your business. A lot of times that means prioritizing paid client work. But then you also have to find a way to work in the long term strategies, the evergreen content you want to make that's going to attract people in the future. launching, any promotions, any offerings. Yeah. Like you can't, you will burn out if you were only focused on the immediate here and now, but you'll spend all your time percussive planning if you are only focused on like, well, long-term, this is what I envision. You'll and stay behind the scenes building instead of putting yourself out there. So you got to find a balance with both.
00:21:36
Speaker
which is not easy, which takes time to figure out even with our handy dandy tips. This is still going to be a yeah ah process. And remember you know to celebrate your progress that you make, even if it's less than you wanted it to be. Giving yourself that recognition relieves a lot of pressure, I feel like, and gives you permission. to You've made some progress. You can keep moving. You don't need to like freeze up and stop.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah, and it
Acknowledging Progress to Avoid Defeat
00:22:06
Speaker
keeps you, forcing yourself to give yourself credit keeps you from becoming defeated, I think. I think it's a helpful tool for avoiding that feeling of defeat when you don't make the goal you want. How did you say it earlier in the episode, Chloe? Give yourself grace and give yourself credit. Yeah, give yourself grace and give yourself credit, yep. Yep, you need both. Happy timeline making.
00:22:34
Speaker
Thanks for joining us for our first season. We'll see you next season. Yeah, we'll see you next season. And if you have any questions or suggestions for season two, feel free to reach out to us. Our
Season One Conclusion
00:22:46
Speaker
email is brandjampod at gmail dot.com. You can also reach out to us on Instagram or threads. We'd love to know what you'd like to hear in season two. Thanks so much for joining us this season. It's been awesome.
00:23:03
Speaker
That's it for this episode of Brand Jam. Check out the show notes for links to the resources we talked about. If this episode hit the spot, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. It helps Brand Jam reach more listeners, so we really appreciate it. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you next time.
00:23:21
Speaker
I won't say, I know I won't make a joke about it. Hopefully season two won't be a year from now but because it might be. It very well might be. it It very well might be, and we will give ourselves grace and credit in that case. Okay, I'm gonna stop the recording.