My goals for 2026 as a garden designer in Whitby

Hello readers! In this post I will explore my personal goals, my business goals, and how I plan to achieve those goals. I hope that at least one person who reads this will be inspired to reach their own goals this year.

My main 3 goals for the year are to smoke less, run more, and post more. Whenever I get the craving for a cigarette or a bong hit, I feel like I am imprisonned by my urges and I often cave as these drugs are widely available to me. Of course, beyond the mental prison I would be escaping, there would be the physical benefits of not cooking my lungs every day. I took up running last year and have been enjoying it a lot. To be honest, I have been slacking on the running mainly because of the weather, but I still get out occasionally and I will be back with a vengence in the spring. My deeper goal with running is to finish my first marathon this year. Finally, I want to focus on posting more. This could be a blog post (like this one), a social media post, or a youtube video. The objective of these posts are to give myself a creative outlet and bring awareness to my business.

Since this blog is mainly about my business, I will dive deeper into the direction I want to take my business this year. Last year, I was very focused on a certain financial goal which led me to take on more “recurring revenue” type clients (mainly lawn care and garden maintenance). With this financial goal behind me, I want to return to the roots of my business – tree planting. There aren’t many jobs that are as spiritually fulfilling to me as tree planting. One of the best ways I’ve found to sell more trees is to sell garden designs which include many trees. Therefore, I also want to brush up on my garden design skills and I have been studying accomplished garden designers in my spare time.

Now this seems like a lot to chew, but I’ve got a plan to make all of these goals possible. My plan is to focus first on behaviors. I can’t control the outcomes of my actions, but I sure as hell can control the inputs. If you wait until you feel like a youtuber to post your first video, you will never post it. Instead, commit to posting videos and stick to your guns. Eventually you will start to feel like a youtuber. Change in behavior comes before change in identity. So, I have commited to making a post every single week and going on a run every single week. Quitting smoking I think will prove to be my most ambitious goal since it involves inaction rather than action. It is easy for me to bang out this post because I said I would do it. I will probably finish writting it within an hour. However, to quit smoking, I must make the decision not to smoke over and over, day in and day out. I have compiled a list of productive activities that I can do when I feel the urge to smoke. To make this plan work, I think it is best to go about it with high intensity. At first I thought I could reduce my smoking by having a “smoke-free day” every week, but I think the better plan is to commit to 3 weeks of no smoking. It will be hard but by the end of the three weeks it will hopefully feel like second nature to me.

I have a long year ahead of me full of challenges that I am excited to take on. I’m sure I will make mistakes along the way, but I am also sure that I will come back stronger than before. If you have big goals this year too I would love to hear about them in the comment section below. Also, if you’ve successfully quit a bad habit like smoking, let me know what worked for you!

Thanks for reading,

Scott Carroll

Carroll Property Services