A Someday Step-by-Step: Setting Goals and Building a Plan

The idea of achieving your Someday is romantic, inspiring, and maybe a little bit magical. But the reality is, making your Someday happen takes clear goal setting, planning, and a lot of hard work.

For HGTV Canada’s Bryan and Sarah Baeumler, building a business was always a goal, but getting there wasn’t a walk in the park. With advice from their parents, mentors, and industry professionals, Bryan and Sarah knew that to reach their objectives they had to set goals and make a plan.

So how did they do it? Here’s a step-by-step account of how they achieved their Someday … which includes only a little bit of romance.

1. Find your passion

For anyone trying to identify their purpose and priorities, Bryan and Sarah’s advice is to first determine a career path you’re passionate about. “Chase after your dreams, don’t meander towards mediocrity,” Bryan urges. The Baeumlers also are quick to add that there will always be tasks you don’t enjoy — even when pursuing something you’re passionate about. But they need to get done in order to move the business forward. There is truth to the saying: “No pain, no gain.”

2. Set clear and achievable goals

For Bryan and Sarah, building the business was the goal from day one. “Although I love the construction business, I didn’t feel that being strictly an owner/ operator and putting in the hours on the tools would support a growing family — or be sustainable until retirement age,” Bryan says. So the couple identified their key goals and relied heavily on their parents, industry professionals, advisors and mentors for advice and direction.

3. Write them down

“Writing down your goals and creating a plan to achieve them is incredibly important,” says Sarah. It helps to solidify what you want to achieve and this action holds you accountable for what you’re setting out to do. There’s something powerful about putting things in writing.

4. Set a plan and a schedule

Next, you’ve got to set a plan to achieve your goals and create a schedule so that you have milestones to reach and celebrate. While you want your plan to include shorter-term, achievable goals, it’s also important to include larger, more aspirational goals to aim for. “The road to success is filled with failures — which are the best learning opportunities — so it’s important to aim high,” says Bryan. “There’s no satisfaction in achieving a goal that you’ve set too low. Your plan will act as a set of benchmarks to motivate and teach you along the way.”

5. Allow yourself the flexibility to pivot

Your goals may be written down and you have milestones and markers set against them. But what if your priorities and interests shift? You don’t want to give up on a goal you’ve been working towards, but it’s also no fun to keep going at something that only half excites you. Rather than starting over, this might be the time to pivot.

Bryan and Sarah are doing just that as they embark on a whole new adventure building their resort in the Bahamas. While they had never been in the resort business before, the idea of building one aligned to their passions and experience. “We certainly have a love for the ocean and palm trees, we love to entertain, and we have extensive experience renovating and decorating tired buildings. It was an idea that started as a dream, but as we proceeded to do our due diligence, it started to make more and more financial sense.”

By doing their research and legwork — such as creating a financial plan, setting clear goals and bringing in people with hotel ownership and management experience to assess the risks and opportunities — they felt comfortable putting in the blood, sweat and tears needed to face the challenges and make this new exciting project happen.

Ready to make your Someday happen? Take a look at other valuable advice from Bryan and Sarah Baeumler, and see how they’re helping others achieve their Somedays.