Stop Setting Goals. Start Setting Floors.
“I want to post more.”
“I want to follow up more.”
“I want to network more.”
“I want to make more money.”
Those sound like goals, but they are also incredibly vague.
In this episode, Jeni shares a different way to approach goal-setting: stop focusing only on the ceiling and start creating a floor.
Your floor is the minimum standard for how you operate.
Instead of saying, “I want to post more,” your floor might be:
I publish three pieces of content every week.
You can post four. You can post five. But you do not go below three.
It is no longer something you hope to accomplish when you feel motivated, inspired, rested, or caught up.
It is simply what you do.
Jeni explains why your floor should be achievable enough to survive your busiest week—not just your most motivated one. Setting an unrealistic standard can create an all-or-nothing cycle where one missed day makes you abandon the entire goal.
The floor creates consistency.
It also removes negotiation.
When you have already decided that you post three times a week, review your numbers once a month, spend two hours in CEO mode each week, or follow up with every qualified lead twice, you no longer have to wake up and decide whether you feel like doing it.
The decision has already been made.
Jeni also dives into why keeping promises to yourself matters. Every time you repeatedly say you are going to do something and then do not follow through, you weaken your own trust in yourself.
But when you create realistic standards and consistently keep those promises, you begin reinforcing a completely different identity.
You become someone who does what she says she is going to do.
In this episode, Jeni talks about:
- Why vague goals often become hopes and wishes
- The difference between a goal and an operating standard
- How to create a realistic minimum for yourself
- Why your floor should survive your busiest week
- How unrealistic goals create all-or-nothing behavior
- Why standards eliminate decision fatigue
- How a floor removes daily negotiation
- The importance of keeping promises to yourself
- Creating marketing, sales, CEO, networking, money, and boundary floors
- Why you should set floors around behaviors you can actually control
- Creating ceilings around the things you refuse to tolerate
- Why your standards should evolve as you grow
- How getting 1% better can dramatically change your business over time
- Why consistency usually wins over occasional bursts of greatness
Examples of business floors
Marketing floor:
I publish three pieces of content every week.
Follow-up floor:
Every qualified inquiry receives at least two follow-ups.
CEO floor:
I spend two uninterrupted hours every week working on my business.
Networking floor:
I make one meaningful industry connection every month.
Money floor:
I review my numbers every month.
Pricing floor:
I do not accept a full-service wedding below my minimum.
Sales floor:
Every week I take at least one action that could directly generate revenue.
Create ceilings around the bullshit
Your business also needs standards for what you will no longer tolerate.
That might look like:
- I do not discount below a certain amount.
- I do not take weddings below my minimum.
- I do not work seven days a week.
- I do not answer client emails at midnight.
- I do not accept more weddings in one weekend than my business can execute well.
- I do not tolerate repeated lateness from freelancers.
Your business needs floors for what you require and ceilings for what you tolerate.
The four-part framework
Choose
What area of your business or life needs more consistency?
Define
What is your minimum acceptable standard?
Protect
What systems or routines will keep you from falling below it?
Raise
Once the floor becomes normal, raise it slightly.
Your challenge
Set five floors:
- your marketing floor
- your sales floor
- your CEO floor
- your relationship floor
- your personal floor
These are not wishes.
This is simply how you operate now.
Key takeaway
You do not need to dramatically raise the ceiling to grow.
Sometimes the biggest transformation comes from raising the floor.
Your business is not built on the weeks when you occasionally crush it.
It is built on what you consistently do.
