ļ»æHey, my friend, what is up? And welcome back to another episode of Do Life Big. Here we are. Can you even freaking believe it? One day left in 2024, one day left. I don't know about you, but after the whole entire month that we had, or six weeks of Back to Back hurricanes down here in Florida, and the massive amount of schooling that my kids had to miss, and the relocation of my youngest to another school because of flooding at his original school, and all that fun stuff going on, I am so ready for a brand New Year. Nothing like a brand-new year, fresh, clean start, but here we are, and with one day left in the year, I thought it would be really important to spend today's episode talking all about why deadlines aren't the end game in your business. And I really want to talk about this because the students who I work with get really hung up sometimes, and myself included in the past, on setting a goal, setting a deadline to achieve this goal.
In our business, the date comes, we don't hit it, and then we get really discouraged and really frustrated, right? How many times have you done that where you're like, all right? This is what's going to happen. This is the goal that I want to hit. I want to make sure I hit it by this date you're actively working towards it. The date comes and you're like, womp, womp. It didn't happen. Most times, when that happens, most people decide that, you know what, forget it. That was a dumb goal. I'm not even going to bother going forward. Anyways, it didn't happen, which means it's never going to happen. So, I might as well just give up on that one, and maybe I'll just pick a safer goal that is the wrong way to go about it, my friend, because your goals and your deadlines are set just as like a tool to help you guide you in your business. It's just a guideline. It's not the be all end all, just because you don't reach a goal in your business by a certain timeline or by this deadline that we put in our mind or on our vision board, doesn't mean that you're never going to achieve it. And you know, I know how sometimes you can internalize it and you can make it mean, like something negative about yourself that you're just not cut out to do this. Maybe you just feel like, you know, I'm just not smart enough to do this. I don't have the tools to be able to get to this level. What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? And we tend to go down that route. What I want to encourage you to do is, I want to encourage you to keep the mindset that you're going to f up. Oh, boy, are you going to f up in your business? And there are going to be many, many, many goals that you don't reach in the deadline that you say that you'd like to reach them. This is totally normal, like, seriously, and the larger that you grow, the more income that you make, the bigger your company, the bigger that you get, the more goals that you're going to have, that you're not going to make, because you're going to dream bigger, and you're going to be setting really big, hairy, scary goals that seem so crazy to the average Joe, but they're not to you, because you're the one that has the vision, and you're the one that has the belief. And if this vision was given to you, then that means that you were also gifted the resourcefulness to be able to figure it out and eventually reach this milestone, and so you will and so coming into it from this point going forward, I want you to put it in your mind that putting setting milestones and deadlines are great. You should absolutely do them, but that missing them does not mean that you will never achieve them, and that you should just take them off the vision board and cross them off of your list and move on to something more comfortable. That's not what entrepreneurs do.
Entrepreneurs want to push themselves. They come out of their comfort zone. They don't want to live in their safety net. That's why you chose this path, right? Not everybody does, but you did, and so this next goal that you set for yourself, whatever it may be, whatever goal it is that you missed, I really want you to sit back and I want you to remember that it's just data that you should only be using this as information to help guide you to become better, to learn from it, to build an even stronger business going forward, and that deadlines are important, but just it's not the be all, end all. And so, what I want you to do is to start to reframe this failure. Sometimes what happens is we set these goals, and we don't hit them in the deadline that we wanted to hit them, and then we make them mean that we're a failure and we're not cut out to do this, and that's just a bunch of bullshit. We know that, right? We know that's ridiculous. It's gonna happen. Always view and missed deadlines as learning opportunities and as a chance to just get better and improve, you know? And I'll never forget, when I was building my first business in the health and fitness industry.
This is the business that this is my very first online business experience as an entrepreneur. I went to school to be a teacher, so I knew nothing about business, and I remember little naive me back in the day when I first started, and I was just in my glory days building this business, skyrocketing it to multiple six figures in part time hours, all while being a stay-at-home mom and raising my little kids. And I just remember thinking this ridiculous frigging thought, which was I was never going to have a failure, that I was going to literally hit every single goal I set for myself because I was on fire. I did not understand or even hear about the entrepreneur roller coaster, which is a book, by the way, and a really good one, and there's a reason for why they call it the entrepreneur roller coaster because being an entrepreneur is one hell of a ride. It is one hell of a roller coaster with a lot of ups and a lot of downs. And so, in my naive little state when I first started this business, I was like, Look at me go, I'm doing freaking awesome. Like, the money's rolling in. Aha, proven. All you people wrong who thought that I wasn't going to amount to anything, and look at me. Now. I don't need to go back to my teaching career. I get to just be home with my kids forever, and it's going to be this skyrocket success forever until I decide to stop, which will be never, because I love what I do.
That was literally my little pea-brain mentality about entrepreneurship when I first started, and we had these certain ranks and recognition in my health and fitness business, and I am very competitive and extreme, like, extremely competitive, I will do anything like to win just a stupid tank top, like, I'll do anything just to say I want it, or to win the bracelet, or to be on the list, or to be the top 10, or to be this, or to be that, or to be on stage and to get the medal and all that stuff. Like, I'm like, driven by that, and I remember that we as a team had hit this ranking called elite. We were an elite team for multiple years in a row, and then one year where I, my business just came to a like a halt, like a major halt, and I got stuck at a multiple six-figure income plateau, busting my ass, trying to work through it, trying to just do whatever I could to break through this plateau. Couldn't quite understand why it was happening to me. And I remember going to this big event for our business that year, and this was the first year that we didn't get that elite ranking and that recognition as a team. And I just remember showing up to this huge event with like 30,000 people, and I remember seeing, like all of the other teams, prizes and medals on display as you walked up this aisle. You walked up this aisle, and they had every single team, like, the leader's name, the team name, their huge recognition, like, beautiful piece. They gave you something different every year, and it was all aligned on this walkway. And I remember just like it was, like, so shameful for me. I remember at that time, and I was like, damn it. You know what the frick? You know, I should be up there. Why didn't it happen this year? Why am I having this plateau-like, why am I stuck right now? But it was on my goal to be an elite team again by the end of the year. It didn't happen. And the mistake that I made was that I was tying my worth to my achievements. I didn't feel like I was a great leader and doing great things unless I had the medals and the rankings and the recognition and all of that. And so if I didn't hit something, and if I missed a goal, and if it didn't happen.
The way I wanted it to happen, or the way I thought it was going to happen, then that meant to me that I just wasn't cut out to go as far as I had hoped, and that was a stupid goal anyways. And I'll just just take that off the list. Who needs that anyways? And then you start justifying why that goal is a dumb goal, and you shouldn't go after it anyways, because if you were meant to hit it, you would have hit it by now, right? How many of you can relate to that? And what I didn't realize was that I was internalizing all of these missed goals and these missed opportunities as failure, and what I've learned all these years later, which is why I became a mindset coach and created a mindset program, and I'm going to be opening up my first ever community where you can, for the first time ever, get my program completely for free, by the way, just want to throw that in there. Usually it's $997 and I open it only open it up for enrollment a few times a year. In January, I'm going to be starting a community, and you will be able to get my program for free when you join my community. So if you do want to know about that, just send me a message @katherinereuter and on Instagram and let me know if you want more details, and I'll send you more information. Usually, you know, I have a link and all this stuff set up where you can go to and in the in the show notes, but I'm just jumping the gun a little bit because I'm so excited about it. But anyways, what I didn't realize at the time was that I was looking at these missed goals as failures, and it wasn't until I learned to really reprogram my mind for success that I learned to reframe failure, and learned to reframe what failure really is and what it really means. And I didn't understand that those missed opportunities and those missed goals and those missed deadlines were far, far, far more important than when I was cruising to the top with no hurdles. Like I know this is hard for you to believe, if you're someone who's like new to business. I mean, if you've been in business for a while, you know? I mean, there are peaks and there are valleys, and let me tell you, when you get stuck down, it can be hard to get back up. But if you can learn to reframe failure and look at these missed deadlines as learning opportunities and as a chance to get better and improve, then they won't knock you down, right?
And so that was the lesson that I had to learn the hard way. And I'm talking when I say the hard way, I mean, for two-plus years, I stayed stuck in this mental rut where most people would have quit and thrown in the towel. I was still clung along, trying to figure it out, trying to work through it. And no matter what I did, nothing changed it until I actually learned how to reprogram my mind and to reframe failure. And so as you come to the end of this year, if you're in that situation where you know you're looking at your vision board and you're looking at your business, and you're looking at all the things that you said you wanted to do at the start of this year, that didn't happen. Or maybe you had this one big goal, this one big achievement that you wanted to do, and it didn't happen. You didn't even come close to it. Or maybe you came so close, but not quite enough to reach it. I really want you to just reflect, reflect on this at the end of this year with one day left, and just adjust what needs to be adjusted going forward, refocus and then celebrate the progress that you did make. Because no matter what, you aren't the same person that you were at the start of this year. There are things that went well. There are things that worked for you. You definitely grew in one way or another. But what happens is, is when we have this goal and we have the deadline, it's like, all we can see. It's like we have a magnifying glass on it, like, this is where I'm going. This is what I want to achieve. This is what has to happen. This must happen. And then when it doesn't happen, it's like, Oh, damn it. I guess I'm not good enough. I guess I don't have what it takes. I guess this was a dumb goal. Anyways, why is this other person hitting these goals? And I can't What's wrong with me? Maybe my friend was right when she said that this was a dumb idea to start this business. Maybe I should just go back to my nine-nine to five, maybe I should just do another business, since this one isn't going as quickly as I'd like it to No, that's all bullshit. You've got to stay the course.
And when you're an entrepreneur, and this is I'm getting sidetracked here, but if you don't learn, if you don't truly learn how to reprogram your mind for success, and you learn how to especially reframe failures, then what will happen is you will end up just quitting. You'll quit on your dreams, you'll quit on your goals. You're going to quit on yourself. You're going to let yourself down. And you've never fixed the root problem. You've never fixed the root issue. And even if you go to another business or another company or another relationship or another state or whatever, that main root issue will always be there and will always come up, always until you learn to get to the root of this problem, which is to reframe your failures, reframing failure, and if you haven't tried my completely free quiz, this will help you. I have a quiz that I created. It's for online entrepreneurs, and it's to help you identify what your entrepreneurial persona type is. There's four different persona types that you could be depending on how you react to business and the things that go well and things that don't go well, and the amount of income that you're earning. And if you go and you take this quiz, it will tell you what your entrepreneurial persona type is, and it will tell you exactly what to do next to get through that and level up to the next level. So if you haven't already taken it, it literally takes, like, 60 seconds. It's super quick. I love quizzes. Just go to Kathireuter.com/quiz it'll be in the show notes, and that will help you. It will tell you exactly what to do next. But you must persevere and believe in your vision. This is literally at the root of it all, because when you go out there and you craft your goals and you make these deadlines, all of that is stemming from what your beliefs are and what your visions are for the future for you and your family and your business.
And that's why it's really important that when you set these goals, before you just go winging these goals out there, like, oh, this will look nice on paper. Well, this is going to look great. To tell this person that I set this goal for myself and I checked this one off the list, like, what do you want, right? What do you want your business to look like in 2025 What do you want your days to be like? What do you want to be doing during that time when you're working your business, right? What do you want your whole business to look and feel like and start from that and then make your goals from that place going forward, and know that most of the goals that you set you're not gonna hit. And your goals should be huge, and they should be scary and they should be crazy and they should seem insane. And that's a good thing because you're so driven, and that's why you're an entrepreneur to begin with, and so make those goals, set them big, but just remember that every time that you miss a goal, it doesn't mean anything negative about you. It doesn't mean anything negative about you as an online entrepreneur or as a business owner. It's just there to teach you something. It's there to be used as data. It's there for you to be able to All right, let me step back. Let me reflect on this. Let's tweak what needs to be tweaked, and let's adjust and let's move forward. All right, I didn't hit my goal at the end of 2024 like I wanted. Let's try to bump this up for maybe three months from now and see what happens. And you just keep tweaking the actions that you do in your business and the strategies and the tools that you're using, and you keep shifting the deadline. But you never throw away the goal. You never give up on the goal. You never turn your back on it and lay down on the floor and give it up and be like, forget it. This is never going to happen, right? You keep going. This is part of being an entrepreneur, is that you have to persevere.
You are the only one that is going to give yourself the inspiration, motivation, determination, perseverance, that you need to wake up every day and fight for this goal that you want, because it's something that's important to you. It's something that means something to you. It's a priority to you. And so you're going to work on this and adjust things as you go, till you eventually get there, and you're going to get used to just setting goals and not hitting them right away, and then adjusting and eventually hitting them making new goals. And the same thing will continue to happen. It's going to happen for as long as you own your business, right? It's just the way it is. So your goals never expire. It's your determination that fuels the dream. And remember that, write that down and carry that with you wherever you go, to remind yourself as a daily reminder why you're doing what you're doing and who you're doing it for, and when you know that giving up on your goals just because you didn't hit them in a certain deadline is not an option in your mind, there's no plan B. This is it. This is Plan A, and there's only one plan, and you're in it to win it, and you're in it to make it happen. And it doesn't matter how many bumps there are along the road. It doesn't matter if it goes to hell in a hand basket, you're gonna freaking figure it out, and you're gonna make it happen, and you're gonna look back and be like, damn that was one hell of a journey, and you're gonna be able to share this story that you have of your business with somebody else to help somebody else get through what you're going through right now.
So I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. Happy New Year. Let's go 2025 I'm so excited about it. Thanks for listening today. You know I love you and I will see you the next time. Bye.
