Most business owners treat goal setting like a New Year’s Resolution. They pick a number, maybe it’s R100k, R500k, or R1M a month. They write it on a sticky note, and then wonder why they feel burnt out three months later.
Here’s the truth: Numbers are meaningless unless they are tied to a lifestyle.
If you’re aiming for R500k a month just to say you did it, but you’re spending 18 hours a day chained to a laptop, you haven’t built a business. You’ve built a cage.
1. The Financial/Lifestyle Link
In my own journey with BRBD and Shout Local, the goal isn’t just “more revenue.” It’s about what that revenue buys. It buys the ability to delegate, the freedom to focus on high-level strategy, and the time to take my wife to be on an interrupted honeymoon.
Before you set your 2026 targets, ask yourself: What does this number actually allow me to do? If the answer is just “buy a bigger car,” you’ll run out of fuel when things get difficult.
2. Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
Everyone wants the “Top Gun” results, but very few people want to do the flight drills.
Setting the goal is the easy part. The work is the hard part. Too many entrepreneurs fail because they retreat the moment things get “messy.”
- The friction of hiring: Bringing on a PA or a new team member is a headache before it’s a help.
- The technical fails: Sites go down. Load shedding hits. Ads don’t convert.
You have to speak your goals into existence, yes. But then you have to shut up and do the work. If you aren’t willing to be uncomfortable, you’ve already reached your ceiling.
3. Transparency: The “Messy Middle”
I’ll be honest with you, the road to scaling three companies simultaneously is full of setbacks. Just last month, I was dealing with power outages that stalled my entire pipeline while trying to get a new website live.
Setbacks aren’t a sign that your goal is wrong. They are a sign that you’re actually in the game. The difference between the owners who scale to R500k+ per month and those who stay stuck at R50k per month is how they handle the friction. Do you pivot and push, or do you make excuses?
4. Actionable Discipline: The Daily SOP
Goals are achieved in the mundane daily habits, not the big announcements. I live by a simple “SOP” (Standard Operating Procedure) question every single day:
“What did I automate and delegate today?”
If you aren’t actively trying to replace yourself in the low-level tasks—rescheduling calls, booking tickets, chasing supplier quotes—you aren’t growing. You’re just busy.
The Long and Short
Stop setting goals to impress people on LinkedIn. Set goals that facilitate the life you want to live, expect the friction, and build the systems to push through it.
Now, stop reading and go look at your calendar. What’s one task you’re doing today that you should be delegating to someone else?
