98: Setting a Deadline for Success

Crystal Vilkaitis: It’s the final episode of 2023 and we are talking about something that’s going to help you achieve a big goal. If there’s something big you want to achieve in 2024, I have a tip that will help you. That’s helped me make sure that you get it done. So let’s dive in.

Are you ready to open up and talk about all things business? I’m Crystal Vilkaitis, a curious entrepreneur who loves talking about business, especially over a glass of wine. I started Crystal Uncorked to share open and honest conversations about my journey and talk to other entrepreneurs about their experiences.

We pull back the curtain and talk about the highs and the lows. Wine isn’t required, but is recommended. This is Crystal Uncorked.

 I can’t believe that we are coming to a close on 2023.

Next year is 2024. My lucky number is 24, so I’m feeling like it’s going to be a great year. I’m also getting married in September of 24. Dustin, my fiance, his lucky number is 20. So, that we did. Intentionally choose that year for a couple of reasons, but one of them was because it was both of our lucky numbers.

And man, I mean, just yesterday, I had three people ask for 2024 speaking topics. I think I’m going to be on the road a lot next year. I’ll have my bachelorette party and the honeymoon and just so many great things to look forward to. So I am really excited for 2024. I feel like we’ve never had.

So much momentum in my business, like we do now. It kind of feels like this was year one, even though it was year 11. I transformed and we’ve been investing in shows and conferences and markets and going to meet with partners in person just to really see what is worth our time and where to put our energies in 2024.

And I’ve never. Gone that deep with it all. And I’m really excited for what’s to come and just the conversations we’re having with people. And I think it’s going to be a pretty epic year. 

So one thing is I was preparing for this, end of year episode is I’m reflecting, I’m thinking about a new year coming and, if there’s something that you want to achieve that you really want to make sure you do it this year, in 2024. 

I have a tip for you because I wanted to have my own conference for so many years and I just kept putting it off and putting it off. And when I would go to other people’s conferences, I would have that feeling of oh, I meant to be doing this, have you ever had that feeling I’m meant for more or I’m meant to be doing this or you see somebody doing something and you’re like, that’s what I want.

But we resist, we put it off, we put it back burner. We think we’re not good enough. We wait till we’re ready and we’re never going to be ready. I couldn’t have been like, okay, now I’m prepared to do my own conference because there’s just things you don’t know until you start doing your own conference.

So somebody gave me the best advice, which was to pick a date and pick a venue, and that’s it. The rest will fall into place because you now have this deadline. You have this time where we start working backwards. We now have to achieve the conference by this day. Right. And so obviously for, if you listen to the show, I launched my conference this year, 2023, it’s called evolve.

We did it in person. It was so successful. It was so awesome. We’re doing it again in 2024. And the things we have planned for 2024 are epic. Oh my God. Our speaker lineup is fire. And how it happened is that I picked a date. It’s about setting a deadline and keeping that commitment to yourself, right?

That’s how we build confidence is by keeping commitments to ourselves. Jen Gottlieb, my mentor, she says that all the time. And it’s so true. When I say, okay, I want to achieve this and I’m consistent and I commit to that and I actually get it done, I am more faith in myself that I’ll get future stuff done.

And that creates that momentum and that helps us get the big, scary things done. And helps us achieve those goals. So for example, for me looking ahead to 2024, I really am going all in on my shows. I love doing podcasting. I think I’m made for this. I want my own talk show. So I just feel like podcasting is kind of your own talk show.

So let’s just. Take it a step further and have an in person studio. And then I also want to rent out space in bigger cities, maybe LA and New York and do a day or two and people come in and sit down and we do these in person interviews. They’re just, it’s more interesting content. And I think you can go a little deeper when you are in person and I prefer that.

I can totally do it online. That’s fine. But I just prefer the in person and I really see the sick studio, which I never used the word sick. So that felt weird, but I see this incredible studio for both rooted in retail, my other show and crystal uncorked. And Ooh, I, Ooh, I just, I’m getting major chills thinking about this.

And so if that’s one of my big goals, then what I need to do is set a deadline and when I’m moving into that studio, right? Okay. So March 1st, I will be in my studio. I haven’t necessarily picked a date, but why not pick March 1st? That sounds great. Gives me a couple of months to, to move in, get it set up, find the space.

I’ve already started doing some of the research to find something locally. My perfect vision of this studio is we would actually move where we live. I want a little bit of a bigger yard. There’s just a few things I’d like to have. And I would like to have a little bit more property and have an event space.

Or at the very least, like a little creative studio on the property, but it’s a separate building. I want to be able to leave the house, no dogs barking, no mail being delivered, like just my ultimate awesome studio back there. I see it in the back of the house. But then really my dream is to have an event space on the property where we could do workshops and retreats and host parties and do cool stuff.

I was wildly inspired when I went to Don Miller’s facility in his event space in Nashville, it’s on his property. They have this beautiful house and then you go up the hill and it’s this stunning event space. And I’m like, Oh, this is, I want this. Like I was just sitting there being like, Ooh, yeah, I want this.

So you know, if we’re moving our house and then building the studio, it might take a little bit longer. So maybe I can rent and find something in the meantime. But the whole goal here, the whole purpose of me saying all this is how am I going to commit and make sure that it gets done and it’s setting a deadline so many times.

I think that we will have to do. Tasks on our to do list, but there’s not, they don’t have to be done at any certain point. It’s would be nice to get this done, and I can’t be the only one that’s experienced this before. You’re looking at your calendar, and you’re like, whoa! Tomorrow, I don’t have any meetings.

And I don’t have a, I don’t have a lot of deadlines Oh my gosh, I can finally get ahead on some projects. And then you wake up and then all of a sudden, like you might spend a little bit longer in the morning journaling or scrolling or going for a long walk or you meet up with a friend for breakfast cause you don’t have any meetings.

And then you’re like, Oh, I just don’t feel like doing that stuff now, right? The hardest part is getting started. And then we’re like, I’ll just take the day off. I need the day off. And maybe you do need the day off. Maybe you need the break. Hopefully you take the break without feeling guilty because I will often feel guilty taking the break.

But then you’re like right back at it and then you look back at the day and you’re like, shit, I had all the best intentions of getting ahead, getting to my, would be nice to have done list and I didn’t do it. And now it just sits there and then it feels like this pressure almost that it’s just still on the list.

And then you feel mad at yourself. And then when we feel mad at ourself, it’s not feeling that excitement and that momentum to go after and get it, right? Because we didn’t hold the commitment to ourself. And so, when we have a deadline if that would be nice to have or to do list was like, and it has to be done by February 1st or March 1st or whatever that day is.

And then that day comes, you’re, you put more pressure on the goal by assigning that deadline and ideally you’re really keeping that commitment to yourself. But then if that day comes and it just doesn’t get done. I think it’s worth looking at that thing and being like, okay, is this really a thing that will help me in my grand picture of like where I’m going?

Is this a strategic priority that I do need to be spending time on and it needs a deadline and it has to get done? Or sometimes we have all these ideas and we think we can do everything. Like we have all the best intentions. Trust me. I’m like, I’m, my hand is up. I, this is me. But then when you really look at it all.

It’s are all of these things really going to help the ultimate goal of what I’m trying to do over here? And often what happens is you look at some stuff and you’re like, Oh, that one, no, that one, maybe this, but it needs to be fine tuned. I need to put more thought into that. And so I think that we need to look at that list, look at those ideas.

First, get it all out of your head. If it’s in your head, get it out of your head, the might, might like that would be nice to have, or nice to get done, get it all out of your head. It’s such a good time to do this end of the year, beginning of the year. Then look and you have to be really clear on the vision of where you’re going in 2024.

So that’s your next step. If you don’t know that already get clear on the vision. Then we’re looking at all this and we’re like, okay, do any of these strategically help support the vision of where I want to go? And maybe they don’t, but it’s more of a passion project that you’re just pulled to do.

Listen to that too. So the strategies and the passion and like the gut feeling, then assign deadlines to those things. When are you going to get those done and be realistic with some of these deadlines because if you’re also like me sometimes I think I’m superwoman and I can get so much done in one week and I’m like I start one project.

I’m like, this one thing is creating 18 other to do’s for me. Whoa, there’s no way I’m going to get this done by this date. Right. But the thing is, is you get started, you’re going to learn more information and then you can modify it. That’s totally fine. You can modify, but I really want to encourage you to set the deadlines, to do that process.

Brain dump of would be nice. Get clear on where you’re going. The would be nice. Does it align? assign. Put it on. I use Asana. Put it on your to do list. Have a deadline. And if there’s multiple pieces to this. You might break it down, like for me, in the case of my studio I might need to really clarify what city I want to be in because there’s a few different areas in here.

What is my budget? Start searching when and finding the right place might take me a solid month to two months. So when do I need to start search searching? Maybe that’s January 1st if the goal is March 1st. And so then maybe I put on my calendar January 1st. You’re spending an hour looking at property and trying to line up some tours, right?

So take action. This is the time. This is the time to get clear. This is how we get stuff done. This is how we make our dreams come true is we have a deadline. We pick a date, we put it on the calendar. And if you want to take a step further, telling somebody, create some of that accountability. If you want to tell me.

If you want to tell one of your business friends, but make sure that you’re telling somebody. So you have that accountability and put it on your calendar, put it somewhere, your to do list, an app, a reminder, an alarm, something. So you don’t forget about it because life happens. We get so we’re just kind of doing our day to day.

It’s a habit. Like I’m used to doing all this stuff when we’re trying to create something new, you have to create a new habit, you have to make space for it, you have to get started. And so we have to remind ourself of those things and we have to get it scheduled. In my opinion, if it’s not scheduled, it does not exist.

So it has to get on the calendar, has to get scheduled and you got to commit to it. So I hope you take action on this episode. I hope that it helps you because it’s really helped me in a lot of different ways and the things that don’t have deadlines, then you can save them on a separate area where it’s like, would be nice and set a reminder every three months or maybe six to check back.

Do some of them just not even apply anymore and you just get rid of them? Or are some of them now this is the right time for this now. And do you have new things to add to it? I think that we have to keep checking in as fast as the world is changing and evolving and technology is moving.

Those would be nice things change just as fast, right? And new things come in. But if we don’t pay attention, we don’t have that system in place. You’re going to miss out. You might get left behind. You’re going to stay standing still when the rest of the world is moving incredibly fast past you. So use this exercise to really help you stay relevant and Spend your time wisely doing things.

It’s going to help that vision of where you’re going and gives you that confidence because you keep the commitments you made to yourself and your business. I’m excited for you. I’m excited for 2024. I think it’s going to be an epic year. And I just want to thank you so much for listening to this show. I know that there’s been a few breaks, but I have made a commitment to just show up every single week.

And it really means a lot. And on a previous episode, I asked what questions do you have? Ask me. I’m going to answer your questions on the show, free consulting, and Rusty, one of our retailers at Crystal Media, one of our insiders and Get Listed clients, he sent me a DM right away and was like, how awesome to ask you a question.

So I’m going to answer his question next week, which is such a good one about what one to three things have really helped me build a very successful business in the 10 years that I’ve had this business, 11 years that I’m like, Ooh, that’s a good one. I’m going to spend some time really um, really going through the past years and really coming up with what is that thing that really.

Help build this business. I’ve got a lot. I got to narrow it down to three. So Rusty, thank you for your question. That will be next week’s episode. And then after that, it’s our 100th episode of Crystal Uncorked. So my team and I have something fun planned. I hope we can pull it off. We’ll see. We’ll see if we can pull it off.

You’ll be the one to know on the second week of January. So I’ll see you then. Thank you for being here. I hope you had a fabulous 2023 and wishing you an epic, amazing 2024. I hope I get to see you in person at my conference evolve, or maybe our retreat opportunity of Oasis or whatever it is, or maybe at a conference, something I would love to see you in person, but thank you for being here.

Thank you for listening means the world have a great year ahead and I’ll see you on the next. See you. Bye!