How to Bridge the Gap Between Your Income Goals and How You Spend Your Time in 2026
Despite it being the depths of Winter here in northern Scotland with nature very much in hibernation mode, I always enjoy the fresh-start feel that comes with a new calendar year.
January has become the month that I traditionally set my annual goals and specifically my income goals - in no small part due to the looming deadline of a tax return!
The thing I’ve found about income goals is that they are very quick and easy to set and much more involved to reach.
One number that we want to receive in income by the end of the year - on paper they tick all the boxes of a good SMART goal - they’re specific, measurable, seem achievable (perhaps at a stretch), relevant and time bound.
The problem is that they are an outcome based goal - they define the outcome we are aiming for, not the action we are going to take to get there.
It means that there can be a massive gap between the goal we’ve set and what we are actually doing on a day to day basis - not thinking about, or really knowing if the actions we are taking are actually the things that will move us towards that goal.
Before we know it, it’s a few months into the year and already we’re already way off track.
What’s underneath the goal
Most of us get partway there. We set the goal at the start of the year and have a sense of the bits of our business that need to be improved - creating a clear marketing plan and sticking to it, developing a new group offer, setting aside more time for collaborations.
It means it’s really easy to set an income goal in January without defining:
What services you’ll offer to hit that goal
Whether you have capacity for the number of clients needed to reach the income goal
What marketing is needed to be doing to reach enough people
If you can physically fit all the required activity into your calendar
In the past for me it meant I’d get busy doing a bit of everything, hoping that my efforts would pay off. And sometimes they did. But what I put in relative to what I got back out felt very out of balance.
A subtle reframe
Now I like to incorporate a subtle, but really powerful, reframe in my income goals.
Rather than say “I want an income of £x by the end of the year.”
I frame it as “I want my business to be set up to make an income of £x per year possible.”
It’s this reframe that opens up the invitation to put a more strategic, experimental lens on ‘how might I reach this goal’.
From this I:
Start with the income goal
Work backwards to see what that actually requires
Map the specific actions needed
Reality-check if it fits in my actual schedule
It means that instead of setting an income goal, staying busy and then feeling frustrated that my efforts aren’t adding up, I can actually figure out what bits I’m missing, overdoing or need more attention.
It also shifts my thinking on what is an actual goal and what is an aspiration or intention where now I tend to think of outcome goals as intentions or aims, rather than action based goals.
Where outcome goals are things that you hope will happen as a result of the things you do, whereas action based goals are the things you actually do.
The goal pyramid
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Imagine your business laid out as a pyramid:
At the peak: Your income goal
In the middle: How you are going to reach that
At the base: What you need to do to make that possible
This bridges the gap between the goal on the top and then day to day activities on the bottom.
The most important step
In my opinion the next step is the most important one. Taking all of the activities you’ve identified and figuring out whether they actually fit with the time, energy and headspace you have available.
For example, maybe you realise that you'd need 20 clients to hit your revenue goal, but you only have capacity for 8 if you are to also have time for marketing each week. Maybe your pricing would need to double what it currently is but you feel really uncomfortable with that. Or maybe you’re already starting the year with a fully booked schedule and realise that you need another 5 hours per week for the new offer you want to build.
If that’s the case then you can:
Adjust the goal (maybe a slightly lower number is more realistic this year)
Change your business model (different offers, different pricing, different delivery)
Build capacity first (create systems this year, then build on those next year)
For me, this approach has helped me set better goals and actually stick to them - despite the inevitable ups and downs of life that come through the year. I find that the most impactful step is the last one - mapping the individual tasks and habits into my calendar. I am chronically overoptimistic about what I can squeeze into a week and this step gives me the reality check that I need!
If you'd like to try this approach for yourself, I've created a free template that let’s you do the process for yourself. You can access it and make a copy here.
Here's to a year of goals that stick. ✨