This is an excerpt from Nicole and Heather's conversation for the Hair of the Dog Podcast Episode # 122 – New Year Planning with Heather Lahtinen. Listen to the full episode HERE.

Nicole: Heather, what do you think is the biggest mistake that people make in their goal setting?

Heather: Oh my gosh. That's a big question. Nicole. Biggest mistake is probably lack of clarity. They don't know who they are and what they want. And more importantly, what they don't want.

Clarity can come from contrast. Sometimes people will say, ‘well, I'm not sure what I want in this area.' And that's totally fair. Could you tell me what you don't want? Because that contrast will give you the clarity to figure out what it is you do want. You can't aim at nothing. You have to put a pin on the map.

So there are two parts to this. Getting clear on where you're going means you have to ask yourself, ‘what do you not want in your business? in life?' So essentially, sometimes I like to ask myself a different form of this question is:

• What drains me?

• What do I not look forward to?

Is there a way that I can either eliminate that? Or if I cannot eliminate it, can I minimize it to some degree?

And then the opposite of that is ‘What gives me energy?' So essentially what I'm asking here is what do I not want? And what do I want? And getting clarity on who I am in my business and in my personal life. And then this will ultimately lead to the goals that I set, the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-based) goals, like getting really specific. But you can't jump to that. You can't jump to a specific goal until you determine what you don't want or what you do want.

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE AND DOWNLOAD THIS FREE GOAL-SETTING WORKSHEET!