161. The Whole Cost: Calculate Before You Commit (2026 Goals)
What happens when you set your goals as if the start of the year is a blank slate? In this episode, I am looking at the reality that you are already carrying client work, ongoing commitments, and your personal life into the new year. The key to making steady progress is understanding the whole cost of your goals so you do not overextend yourself or your team.
I am sharing the number one consideration you need before setting your 2026 goals and why the whole cost matters for every decision you make. Whole cost includes the time and bandwidth required to achieve a goal, the financial investment involved, and the energy needed to sustain the results you create. When you can see the full picture, you can plan with clarity instead of guesswork.
You will learn how to break goals into manageable steps and choose priorities that match your capacity rather than your wish list. You will also hear how many priorities per quarter is the true tipping point for meaningful progress and how understanding whole cost helps you avoid scattered focus and unfinished work. This approach will help you plan with confidence and choose goals that you can follow through on all year long.
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What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
Why prioritization requires a cutting off process and saying no to yourself to avoid disappointment later.
How to calculate the whole cost of a goal, including time, overhead, and mental and emotional bandwidth.
Why limiting your priorities each quarter is key for making meaningful progress.
What overhead costs to consider beyond task completion.
Practical ways to break down goals into tangible steps and assign realistic timeframes.
How to evaluate whether you want the idea of something or the reality of living it.
Why treating the new year as a blank slate leads to overcommitment and frustration.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you're listening to episode 161. This is an important one today, especially as we move into the new year. We're talking about the number one thing you must consider and account for before you set your 2026 goals. In order to set yourself up for success and be able to make consistent progress without overextending yourself or your team, you have to consider the whole cost of your goal. I'll be talking about this concept, what it is, how you do it, and how to apply it to your plans for next year.
I'll be talking about this in the context of goal setting, but know that this really is something that you should have top of mind whenever you're deciding whether or not to take on a new commitment, role, or responsibility. Let's dive in.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. Happy New Year. We are in 2026, and at the time of this release, it is your last call for joining me in Create Your 2026 Roadmap. I want to make sure that you hear that loud and clear. We start this Friday, January 9th, with a guided planning and reflection session, and then we meet again January 16th, where you can get your questions answered, work through your sticking points, and get personalized feedback.
During the guided planning session, we are going to map out your 2026 vision, do a thorough evaluation of what worked and didn't work last year, and then use all of that to identify the one to three priorities you're going to focus on each quarter of the year.
This is the sixth year that I've run Roadmap, and over the years, designers have used this for so many different things and setting in motion so many different improvements and initiatives in their business to help them up-level in their practice. It could be something like setting your fees in a different way, restructuring your pricing, could be developing some new systems or refining processes for efficiency or scalability. It could be along the lines of hiring someone new to bring onto your team or growing in that capacity, or around marketing and bringing to life a new website to showcase your latest work. It could be so many different things.
And as you can see, there are so many different things that we all want to do to improve the business and take it to that next level. And what I see consistently, like I said, this is the sixth year this is going to be running. I've worked with over 300 designers in this program alone. And what I see time and time again is that three priorities per quarter really is the tipping point. And any more than that becomes less, meaning if you want to say I'm going to do more than three priorities per quarter, less will be done. I just know that to be true.
When there are more than three projects you're trying to move along at the same time, your focus gets scattered, and you just don't have the necessary resources, internal resources, or external resources, and you don't end up being where you want to be by the end of the year.
It's just, one of my clients called it glitter goals. It's just like throwing glitter everywhere, and then it's all over the floor. It's very pretty, and it's sparkly, and it's fun, and also then you have this huge mess that you can't get rid of because you know how glitter goes. You're going to find it in your clothes, you're going to find it on a speck in your house, in the corner, two years from now. And we don't want your goals to be like that.
And this is a big part of why I want to bring the topic we're talking about today, that the idea of a whole cost of a project, a goal, or a commitment, and how does that align with what you can realistically take on? What does that mean for those three priorities you could be setting with my support in Create Your 2026 Roadmap?
And I realized I didn't give you the link to sign up, so let me give that to you now if you still want to join us. It's DesiID.com/2026roadmap, and you can sign up there. It's only $87. And there will be a replay and an option to send in your questions ahead of time if you're unable to join us for one or both of those calls.
Today, we're going to be talking about factoring in the whole cost of a goal before you commit to it to really set you up for a successful year. And before we do that, I want to briefly touch on prioritization because the two concepts are very much linked.
Now, the number one thing that you need to know about prioritization is that it requires a cutting-off process. By definition, prioritization is the process of deciding the relative importance or urgency of things. So in order to prioritize, there has to be a hierarchy. You have to say, this is a yes, and this is a no, whether that no is a not right now or it's a not ever.
And most of us don't like saying no to ourselves. Hey, listen, me included. Which really is what you have to do if you prioritize. You have to say no to yourself. And I mean, it makes sense. We don't like to do this because then we feel disappointed. I know I have felt this many a time. And instead of feeling the disappointment in the moment when we are realistically assessing what our ideas and initiatives will require, you create a big old list, cross your fingers and hope for the best, and run off to chase the projects.
And the ironic thing here is that often we avoid prioritization because we want to avoid that disappointment in the moment of being like, yeah, I don't think I could do that right now, and I really want to, and it feels important. The thing is, you will be disappointed anyways. It just happens later. It just happens a little bit farther down the road when you haven't been able to do all the things, and you either realize and have come to terms with, oh yeah, this was probably too much, or you're behind and you haven't made progress the way that you wanted to or it's not shaping up the way you wanted it to.
And what ends up happening, which I think is even worse than the disappointment in general, like just as a feeling, is that you end up being disappointed in yourself when you delay the disappointment from avoiding getting clear on what your priorities are. And what I mean by disappointment in yourself is like, it becomes this moral failing that you aren't farther along on these projects versus what it really is. It's a failure to plan. And it's a failure to plan, considering the whole cost of what you're signing up for.
Now, if you are going, yep, Desi, I know what you're talking about, you should probably go listen to episode 67, When to Say No to Yourself, as a follow-up. We'll make sure to get that linked in the show notes. But in order to effectively prioritize, you have to, of course, be willing to do it. That's the first thing. And number two is you have to account for the full cost of the commitment so that when you say these are the one to three things I'm going to focus on this quarter, you're doing that with eyes wide open.
I've used the phrase "whole cost" a few times now, so I want to give you a little bit broader perspective on what I mean by that. And I think you can really think about whole cost in three different ways.
The first being the entire amount of time it will take you to achieve the goal or the quarterly priority you're committing to, right? That's what we're doing in Roadmap, is we're setting an overall year goal and then dividing the year into quarters with steps you're taking along the way that all eventually lead to that big goal. Okay? So it's the total amount of time it's going to take you to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
And this isn't just the time to complete the tasks themselves. You have to also consider the overhead that comes with managing a project or an initiative. There is always, always going to be overhead. So it's not just sitting down at your desk to do the thing. It is all the other things that go into just being able to even take action, right?
So that's all the planning that needs to happen to map this out, to research what needs to be done. Maybe you need to get some insight into different approaches or talk to people or learn something new. There's the time that it takes to delegate and manage the people that are supporting you. You have to have time to communicate, whether that's the emails that are going to be necessary to move things forward, the checking of Asana statuses, the conversations you have on the phone, that all expands, and it takes time. Maybe it's travel and then the logistics to coordinate travel, or the supervising of the work, or the revising of the work, maybe multiple times.
And then, of course, there's all the unknowns. We can try and get advice, or we can talk to others who have gone before us and have done something similar, or problem-solve, you know, think of if things were going to go wrong, what would that be, and account for that. But then there's also going to be things that we just can't anticipate. And so that is, of course, a cost that you're going to incur in pursuing the goal.
And then there's also the non-action-related overhead. So that's the mental and emotional and creative overhead. Could be, you know, the time that you're thinking about the idea or the problem when you're not actively working on it. It is getting into a state of flow. It is having the mental bandwidth required to create a very creative solution to something you're trying to solve for or a next level you're trying to reach. It's having the space to ride the emotional ups and downs that come with going after something big and inevitably having moments where things don't go as planned. So there's so much that needs to be accounted for, just even outside the actual actions that you need to take that do take up your resources.
I recently came up to this face-to-face with my own business when I was getting ready to start mapping out the launch for Create Your 2026 Roadmap. I had the idea, oh, it would be so cool if we did Roadmap, and then I offered a whole quarter of support. And I was going to call it the Action Lab, and I was going to help you break down your projects and implement them, and we were going to have co-working sessions, and it was going to be amazing. And once I started looking at what is the whole cost of adding on this new product, essentially, to the existing launch, I realized the cost of that is going to be more than I have to give or want to give in this current phase of business, and it was going to be essentially distracting from something else that I want to be focused on.
So I did have some disappointment about that. Let me tell you, it took me a little bit of processing and some time to let that go, but it was very much the right choice for my future self. But I just, I want you to recognize I have been there. I get this. So you're not alone, and it is important because otherwise you end up committing to things that down the road, you're not so happy about, for whatever reason that is. Okay?
So that's the first way you can think about whole cost, is like the entire amount of time, the entire amount of mental or emotional or creative bandwidth. That kind of all gets lumped into one way.
The other thing you can think of is financial cost, the whole cost financially. So programs maybe need to be purchased or upgraded in order to implement this idea you have. Contractors maybe need to be hired or a team needs to be paid for something. Could be investing in learning or education.
And I think this is really especially important to consider if you are thinking about expanding or changing the services you offer, and maybe even it's creating a product line or something like that, because, you know, there's the logistics of all of that, and also there and there's the time opportunity cost where you could be making money other ways.
It could be that there's a delay between the investment of your financial resources and the return that you get. Sometimes, even you can find that your top-line revenue is going to increase, but profit is going to decrease for a while as you regroup some expenses and get your footing. And so you just want to be aware of what is the financial output that I'm committing to if I pursue this goal as well.
The last way you can think about the whole cost is the cost to maintain the goal or the result that you've created. This could be your ongoing time, your mental and emotional bandwidth, or the lifestyle that's required to keep this result in motion. Sometimes when you're going after a big goal, there is a period of pushing or a sprint, and that's okay if you want to choose that. That's definitely an option on the table.
And you also want to look at what might be necessary to sustain the result. Are you always going to be in a period of sprinting in order to keep the result in motion? Or what is going to be required of you to maybe sprint, but then slow down a bit and have some other supports brought in, maybe in the form of a team member or something like that, to help you settle and recalibrate? So we just always want to think about, is this what I want to sign up for, or is it what I want to solve for in terms of maintaining the result?
The other thing you can be thinking about here is, do I like the idea of something but don't want to live the reality of it? Right? So what is that lifestyle that is required of me in order to have this goal, or the result that I kind of think sounds appealing or attractive in some way?
I know for me, I really enjoy when I have the opportunity to go to High Point, or early in last year, I went to Las Vegas Market. It's very fun. I like being in person with you. I like being in community with all of you. But I also know that the season of life I'm in, the way that I am prioritizing my family, if my goal were to be, oh, gosh, that looks really fun when I see other people who are doing things all over the country, and, gosh, I know I could do that too. That looks appealing. If I were to run with that goal, that really wouldn't align with the lifestyle that I want to be living right now. It's something that I can create space for. Maybe I do a couple of them per year, but it's not something that I want to set my goals around.
So I think that's the other piece of this is do you want the lifestyle? Do you want the ongoing cost of what it takes to maintain the result? Because if you don't, then we definitely need to figure out something else or look at solutions.
Overall, this concept of the whole cost, just to recap, the whole cost could be the entire amount of time it'll take you to achieve the goal, and you can also factor in the mental, emotional, and creative bandwidth that'll be required. It can be the financial whole cost, and it could also be under the umbrella of the whole cost to maintain the results.
So you can think about it in those three ways. And I'd say overall, right, this is something I think we can wrap our head around, and when we step back, kind of think, oh yeah, there is a lot to setting a goal. And some of us like to avoid that a little bit. But if you don't consider the whole cost and you just write down the goal and decide that's the goal, and now we'll see what happens, you really don't know what you're getting into.
You can't plan appropriately. You end up being overcommitted. You're frustrated by the lack of progress or your speed of progress. Maybe your profit isn't where you want it to be, or your staff isn't focused on their highest leverage activities, which will definitely end up impacting you. So this is why it's so important, and it's why I wanted to bring it to the podcast today to bring this to your awareness and make sure that you are really thinking about this when you commit to your goals.
I'm going to talk about how to factor the full cost, and when I do this, I'm going to be focused on really the time and mental and emotional bandwidth required for the rest of this episode, but you can definitely take what I'm sharing and apply it to those other ways that I was speaking about it as well.
So let's answer the question: how do you figure out what is the whole cost? The way that you do this is you have to break down your goal into the quarterly priorities, which is what we're doing in 2026 Roadmap, and then you're going to break the priorities down into tangible steps, everything you can think of.
So when you say these are the one to three things I'm going to do, or even if it's a longer priority, like something you couldn't actually get done in a quarter, you can chunk that as well. That's another idea that you could think about too, of like, maybe this is actually going to take me six months, but I'm going to do this chunk in three months and then that chunk in three months, okay?
So you want to, whatever it is, whatever the container you've given yourself and the priority you're assigning to it, you want to break it down as absolutely much as you can. I think the smaller the better. And then what you're going to do is you're going to assign times to each of these. And that could be, well, I need to research this, and that's going to take me about this amount of time. But also remember all those kind of overhead pieces of revisions, the unexpected, delegation time, all of that needs to get a time assigned.
And I hear you. You're going to have to take some guesses. I know what you're thinking on the other side of your earbuds, and my microphone is, well, I don't know how long it's going to take. Well, you're going to need to look at what you've done in the past and take an informed guess. You might have to talk to some people, you might have to anticipate it's going to take way more than it might actually take just because you want to give yourself plenty of buffer. You're going to have to do the best you can. That's really all you can do, right? We are not fortune tellers.
But my guess is that there are certain things on your list that you're going to create that you can take a pretty educated guess and come within a reasonable mark. And then, of course, you want to put in buffer time as well for things to take longer than you thought, for you to get sick, to account for your kids getting sick, all those things that come up because life is life, and we need to have space for them. Okay?
And then what you're going to end up doing is you're going to look at what is that mapped out version of the tangible priority, and how does this fit into what you have going on in the business, what you have going on in your life, and the resources that you have available to execute? I also want you to ask, is this how you want to spend your time? And really think about that. Maybe the plan looks nice, realistic, like, yep, I've got space to do this. I can handle it. And there's also something that you want to do that's different from that. And it's like, is this how I want to spend my time? Is this the one I want to go with? Not from an overthinking, spinning type place, but just thinking of what does my business need right now and what's going to help me move the needle?
And I like to think kind of like a domino of what's going to be the first domino to fall, that's going to make everything else along the path easier. Just tick, tick, tick, those dominoes start to fall. But you really need to think about, is this how I want to spend my time when you know it's going to overextend you? And I mentioned this before, but sometimes we do take on things, and we know it's going to be a period where there is more on our plate than typically would.
And if that is the case, when you are saying you want to commit to something and you know that the whole cost is more than you have really to give, I want you to think about, I want you to imagine what is it going to be like when it is 9 p.m. and you're in your office and you're doing this work? Or what is it going to be like when you're at your kids' game, and you're firing off emails?
Whatever it is, whatever that trade-off is, bring it into clear view. And sometimes the trade-offs will be, absolutely, this is definitely what I want to do. It is worth it. I'm going to, for a period of time, set these other things aside as priorities so that I can create space for this, or I'm going to come up with some creative solutions for how I'm going to make this work, and you do decide to do it. I'm not trying to be a Desi Downer about this. I think as you're listening to this, you could be thinking of, well, if I start to look at what the whole cost of something is, I'm never going to do anything ever again because it's all going to be a lot.
That can be true. I mean, anything big we take on is going to have a lot of complex pieces, and it's going to take time, it's going to take effort, it's going to take energy, for sure. But you still might want to choose it because of ultimately what you're creating as a designer CEO. All that I'm saying here is let's choose purposefully with what you do. And let's do that with this all-encompassing vantage point because then what you do is you choose to move forward knowing what trade-offs you're making and knowing what space you need to clear, what resources you need to call in.
And you also can get creative about things, like you can adjust timelines for the goals or projects so that it fits in the way that you want it to fit in, and you can know that you are choosing your future on purpose and because you really like your reasons for the choices you're making. And that is such an empowered place to achieve goals from. And it's so much better than I should be doing this or, gosh, I feel behind. I should try and catch up, or I want to do these things, and if I don't, then I won't succeed, right?
So we can always be looking at what is it that I want to have happen, what is the way I want to have that happen, and knowing the whole cost is going to help you understand the best path forward for you.
And so it very much is a reality check. Sometimes it's a little confronting, and it's going to help you get your goals achieved. That's ultimately what you want. So you could say there is a cost to knowing the whole cost, but for me, that is an investment that is absolutely worth it. When you do this process alongside setting your 2026 goals, planning is actually going to become easier. I know that this is a new step for some of you, and so there might be some friction at first, but it does make it easier. And you're going to know what you need to do and what's required to make it happen.
What happens then is you can more easily honor your capacity and honor your goals right alongside it. And you can make adjustments to create more time or space for these priorities that you want to bring into the fold. And that could look so many different ways.
What ends up happening is that you're able to plan in a way that really honors your ebb and flow of capacity because that's not just a consistent thing either. And you can make adjustments needed to create more time and space, whether that means you are going full steam ahead and you need to clear the decks for some of these priorities you're going to implement, or it means you're adjusting those priorities and chunking them out in different ways, or maybe they look a little bit different than you originally thought they would in order to make them still happen.
Many of the clients I work with are running at full capacity as it is, but then set their goals as if the start of the year is this blank slate or empty container that's ready to be filled. And that is just simply not the case. There's going to always be client projects and likely things that got started from last year that are being carried over, and of course, your life and what you want for yourself personally. And then there's the things that you have control over for the most part or have more influence over, and then there's going to be the unexpected things popping up whenever and however it always does.
And so we want to have a plan to achieve the goals that has some flexibility, that has some space for life to be what it is, to have business ebb and evolve with you. And when you understand what it is that the cost is of your goal, you can more easily adapt and change and pivot as you need.
Taking the time to look at the entire cost of a goal really is how you can sidestep the sinking of plans that happens when you ignore what I just talked about, right? Of things coming up and business and life being what it is, right? So you can avoid sinking those plans with something that is an avoidable problem, and that is factoring the whole cost before you commit.
What's going to happen is you're just going to have so much more energy to devote to what you do commit to and stop wasting time and energy on what isn't meant for now. It means more focus, more momentum, and real, meaning completed, results. All of which I know is what you want more of in your business, not a wish list.
As a final reminder, Create Your 2026 Roadmap is kicking off this Friday, and you can get all the details at DesiID.com/2026roadmap. And we will be setting these priorities, we'll be crafting your vision for the year, and we'll be taking into account the whole cost as you do that. It is definitely not too late to join us.
We're going to be doing the work of mapping out your year, quarter by quarter, on the call. So there's nothing you really need to do before you show up. You just need to show up. And that means you can sign up today and join us later this week. Of course, if you have a scheduling conflict, I completely understand that. There will be replays and the opportunity to submit your questions ahead of time. That's worked really well in the past for others. So don't let that be a reason for you to not get this support. There will be still a way for you to participate in whatever variation of this works for you.
I hope you enjoyed this one. I hope it shifted something for you, and I'll be back in two weeks with a brand new episode. And until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful start to the new year.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
I'll be talking about this in the context of goal setting, but know that this really is something that you should have top of mind whenever you're deciding whether or not to take on a new commitment, role, or responsibility. Let's dive in.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place.
I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. Happy New Year. We are in 2026, and at the time of this release, it is your last call for joining me in Create Your 2026 Roadmap. I want to make sure that you hear that loud and clear. We start this Friday, January 9th, with a guided planning and reflection session, and then we meet again January 16th, where you can get your questions answered, work through your sticking points, and get personalized feedback.
During the guided planning session, we are going to map out your 2026 vision, do a thorough evaluation of what worked and didn't work last year, and then use all of that to identify the one to three priorities you're going to focus on each quarter of the year.
This is the sixth year that I've run Roadmap, and over the years, designers have used this for so many different things and setting in motion so many different improvements and initiatives in their business to help them up-level in their practice. It could be something like setting your fees in a different way, restructuring your pricing, could be developing some new systems or refining processes for efficiency or scalability. It could be along the lines of hiring someone new to bring onto your team or growing in that capacity, or around marketing and bringing to life a new website to showcase your latest work. It could be so many different things.
And as you can see, there are so many different things that we all want to do to improve the business and take it to that next level. And what I see consistently, like I said, this is the sixth year this is going to be running. I've worked with over 300 designers in this program alone. And what I see time and time again is that three priorities per quarter really is the tipping point. And any more than that becomes less, meaning if you want to say I'm going to do more than three priorities per quarter, less will be done. I just know that to be true.
When there are more than three projects you're trying to move along at the same time, your focus gets scattered, and you just don't have the necessary resources, internal resources, or external resources, and you don't end up being where you want to be by the end of the year.
It's just, one of my clients called it glitter goals. It's just like throwing glitter everywhere, and then it's all over the floor. It's very pretty, and it's sparkly, and it's fun, and also then you have this huge mess that you can't get rid of because you know how glitter goes. You're going to find it in your clothes, you're going to find it on a speck in your house, in the corner, two years from now. And we don't want your goals to be like that.
And this is a big part of why I want to bring the topic we're talking about today, that the idea of a whole cost of a project, a goal, or a commitment, and how does that align with what you can realistically take on? What does that mean for those three priorities you could be setting with my support in Create Your 2026 Roadmap?
And I realized I didn't give you the link to sign up, so let me give that to you now if you still want to join us. It's DesiID.com/2026roadmap, and you can sign up there. It's only $87. And there will be a replay and an option to send in your questions ahead of time if you're unable to join us for one or both of those calls.
Today, we're going to be talking about factoring in the whole cost of a goal before you commit to it to really set you up for a successful year. And before we do that, I want to briefly touch on prioritization because the two concepts are very much linked.
Now, the number one thing that you need to know about prioritization is that it requires a cutting-off process. By definition, prioritization is the process of deciding the relative importance or urgency of things. So in order to prioritize, there has to be a hierarchy. You have to say, this is a yes, and this is a no, whether that no is a not right now or it's a not ever.
And most of us don't like saying no to ourselves. Hey, listen, me included. Which really is what you have to do if you prioritize. You have to say no to yourself. And I mean, it makes sense. We don't like to do this because then we feel disappointed. I know I have felt this many a time. And instead of feeling the disappointment in the moment when we are realistically assessing what our ideas and initiatives will require, you create a big old list, cross your fingers and hope for the best, and run off to chase the projects.
And the ironic thing here is that often we avoid prioritization because we want to avoid that disappointment in the moment of being like, yeah, I don't think I could do that right now, and I really want to, and it feels important. The thing is, you will be disappointed anyways. It just happens later. It just happens a little bit farther down the road when you haven't been able to do all the things, and you either realize and have come to terms with, oh yeah, this was probably too much, or you're behind and you haven't made progress the way that you wanted to or it's not shaping up the way you wanted it to.
And what ends up happening, which I think is even worse than the disappointment in general, like just as a feeling, is that you end up being disappointed in yourself when you delay the disappointment from avoiding getting clear on what your priorities are. And what I mean by disappointment in yourself is like, it becomes this moral failing that you aren't farther along on these projects versus what it really is. It's a failure to plan. And it's a failure to plan, considering the whole cost of what you're signing up for.
Now, if you are going, yep, Desi, I know what you're talking about, you should probably go listen to episode 67, When to Say No to Yourself, as a follow-up. We'll make sure to get that linked in the show notes. But in order to effectively prioritize, you have to, of course, be willing to do it. That's the first thing. And number two is you have to account for the full cost of the commitment so that when you say these are the one to three things I'm going to focus on this quarter, you're doing that with eyes wide open.
I've used the phrase "whole cost" a few times now, so I want to give you a little bit broader perspective on what I mean by that. And I think you can really think about whole cost in three different ways.
The first being the entire amount of time it will take you to achieve the goal or the quarterly priority you're committing to, right? That's what we're doing in Roadmap, is we're setting an overall year goal and then dividing the year into quarters with steps you're taking along the way that all eventually lead to that big goal. Okay? So it's the total amount of time it's going to take you to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
And this isn't just the time to complete the tasks themselves. You have to also consider the overhead that comes with managing a project or an initiative. There is always, always going to be overhead. So it's not just sitting down at your desk to do the thing. It is all the other things that go into just being able to even take action, right?
So that's all the planning that needs to happen to map this out, to research what needs to be done. Maybe you need to get some insight into different approaches or talk to people or learn something new. There's the time that it takes to delegate and manage the people that are supporting you. You have to have time to communicate, whether that's the emails that are going to be necessary to move things forward, the checking of Asana statuses, the conversations you have on the phone, that all expands, and it takes time. Maybe it's travel and then the logistics to coordinate travel, or the supervising of the work, or the revising of the work, maybe multiple times.
And then, of course, there's all the unknowns. We can try and get advice, or we can talk to others who have gone before us and have done something similar, or problem-solve, you know, think of if things were going to go wrong, what would that be, and account for that. But then there's also going to be things that we just can't anticipate. And so that is, of course, a cost that you're going to incur in pursuing the goal.
And then there's also the non-action-related overhead. So that's the mental and emotional and creative overhead. Could be, you know, the time that you're thinking about the idea or the problem when you're not actively working on it. It is getting into a state of flow. It is having the mental bandwidth required to create a very creative solution to something you're trying to solve for or a next level you're trying to reach. It's having the space to ride the emotional ups and downs that come with going after something big and inevitably having moments where things don't go as planned. So there's so much that needs to be accounted for, just even outside the actual actions that you need to take that do take up your resources.
I recently came up to this face-to-face with my own business when I was getting ready to start mapping out the launch for Create Your 2026 Roadmap. I had the idea, oh, it would be so cool if we did Roadmap, and then I offered a whole quarter of support. And I was going to call it the Action Lab, and I was going to help you break down your projects and implement them, and we were going to have co-working sessions, and it was going to be amazing. And once I started looking at what is the whole cost of adding on this new product, essentially, to the existing launch, I realized the cost of that is going to be more than I have to give or want to give in this current phase of business, and it was going to be essentially distracting from something else that I want to be focused on.
So I did have some disappointment about that. Let me tell you, it took me a little bit of processing and some time to let that go, but it was very much the right choice for my future self. But I just, I want you to recognize I have been there. I get this. So you're not alone, and it is important because otherwise you end up committing to things that down the road, you're not so happy about, for whatever reason that is. Okay?
So that's the first way you can think about whole cost, is like the entire amount of time, the entire amount of mental or emotional or creative bandwidth. That kind of all gets lumped into one way.
The other thing you can think of is financial cost, the whole cost financially. So programs maybe need to be purchased or upgraded in order to implement this idea you have. Contractors maybe need to be hired or a team needs to be paid for something. Could be investing in learning or education.
And I think this is really especially important to consider if you are thinking about expanding or changing the services you offer, and maybe even it's creating a product line or something like that, because, you know, there's the logistics of all of that, and also there and there's the time opportunity cost where you could be making money other ways.
It could be that there's a delay between the investment of your financial resources and the return that you get. Sometimes, even you can find that your top-line revenue is going to increase, but profit is going to decrease for a while as you regroup some expenses and get your footing. And so you just want to be aware of what is the financial output that I'm committing to if I pursue this goal as well.
The last way you can think about the whole cost is the cost to maintain the goal or the result that you've created. This could be your ongoing time, your mental and emotional bandwidth, or the lifestyle that's required to keep this result in motion. Sometimes when you're going after a big goal, there is a period of pushing or a sprint, and that's okay if you want to choose that. That's definitely an option on the table.
And you also want to look at what might be necessary to sustain the result. Are you always going to be in a period of sprinting in order to keep the result in motion? Or what is going to be required of you to maybe sprint, but then slow down a bit and have some other supports brought in, maybe in the form of a team member or something like that, to help you settle and recalibrate? So we just always want to think about, is this what I want to sign up for, or is it what I want to solve for in terms of maintaining the result?
The other thing you can be thinking about here is, do I like the idea of something but don't want to live the reality of it? Right? So what is that lifestyle that is required of me in order to have this goal, or the result that I kind of think sounds appealing or attractive in some way?
I know for me, I really enjoy when I have the opportunity to go to High Point, or early in last year, I went to Las Vegas Market. It's very fun. I like being in person with you. I like being in community with all of you. But I also know that the season of life I'm in, the way that I am prioritizing my family, if my goal were to be, oh, gosh, that looks really fun when I see other people who are doing things all over the country, and, gosh, I know I could do that too. That looks appealing. If I were to run with that goal, that really wouldn't align with the lifestyle that I want to be living right now. It's something that I can create space for. Maybe I do a couple of them per year, but it's not something that I want to set my goals around.
So I think that's the other piece of this is do you want the lifestyle? Do you want the ongoing cost of what it takes to maintain the result? Because if you don't, then we definitely need to figure out something else or look at solutions.
Overall, this concept of the whole cost, just to recap, the whole cost could be the entire amount of time it'll take you to achieve the goal, and you can also factor in the mental, emotional, and creative bandwidth that'll be required. It can be the financial whole cost, and it could also be under the umbrella of the whole cost to maintain the results.
So you can think about it in those three ways. And I'd say overall, right, this is something I think we can wrap our head around, and when we step back, kind of think, oh yeah, there is a lot to setting a goal. And some of us like to avoid that a little bit. But if you don't consider the whole cost and you just write down the goal and decide that's the goal, and now we'll see what happens, you really don't know what you're getting into.
You can't plan appropriately. You end up being overcommitted. You're frustrated by the lack of progress or your speed of progress. Maybe your profit isn't where you want it to be, or your staff isn't focused on their highest leverage activities, which will definitely end up impacting you. So this is why it's so important, and it's why I wanted to bring it to the podcast today to bring this to your awareness and make sure that you are really thinking about this when you commit to your goals.
I'm going to talk about how to factor the full cost, and when I do this, I'm going to be focused on really the time and mental and emotional bandwidth required for the rest of this episode, but you can definitely take what I'm sharing and apply it to those other ways that I was speaking about it as well.
So let's answer the question: how do you figure out what is the whole cost? The way that you do this is you have to break down your goal into the quarterly priorities, which is what we're doing in 2026 Roadmap, and then you're going to break the priorities down into tangible steps, everything you can think of.
So when you say these are the one to three things I'm going to do, or even if it's a longer priority, like something you couldn't actually get done in a quarter, you can chunk that as well. That's another idea that you could think about too, of like, maybe this is actually going to take me six months, but I'm going to do this chunk in three months and then that chunk in three months, okay?
So you want to, whatever it is, whatever the container you've given yourself and the priority you're assigning to it, you want to break it down as absolutely much as you can. I think the smaller the better. And then what you're going to do is you're going to assign times to each of these. And that could be, well, I need to research this, and that's going to take me about this amount of time. But also remember all those kind of overhead pieces of revisions, the unexpected, delegation time, all of that needs to get a time assigned.
And I hear you. You're going to have to take some guesses. I know what you're thinking on the other side of your earbuds, and my microphone is, well, I don't know how long it's going to take. Well, you're going to need to look at what you've done in the past and take an informed guess. You might have to talk to some people, you might have to anticipate it's going to take way more than it might actually take just because you want to give yourself plenty of buffer. You're going to have to do the best you can. That's really all you can do, right? We are not fortune tellers.
But my guess is that there are certain things on your list that you're going to create that you can take a pretty educated guess and come within a reasonable mark. And then, of course, you want to put in buffer time as well for things to take longer than you thought, for you to get sick, to account for your kids getting sick, all those things that come up because life is life, and we need to have space for them. Okay?
And then what you're going to end up doing is you're going to look at what is that mapped out version of the tangible priority, and how does this fit into what you have going on in the business, what you have going on in your life, and the resources that you have available to execute? I also want you to ask, is this how you want to spend your time? And really think about that. Maybe the plan looks nice, realistic, like, yep, I've got space to do this. I can handle it. And there's also something that you want to do that's different from that. And it's like, is this how I want to spend my time? Is this the one I want to go with? Not from an overthinking, spinning type place, but just thinking of what does my business need right now and what's going to help me move the needle?
And I like to think kind of like a domino of what's going to be the first domino to fall, that's going to make everything else along the path easier. Just tick, tick, tick, those dominoes start to fall. But you really need to think about, is this how I want to spend my time when you know it's going to overextend you? And I mentioned this before, but sometimes we do take on things, and we know it's going to be a period where there is more on our plate than typically would.
And if that is the case, when you are saying you want to commit to something and you know that the whole cost is more than you have really to give, I want you to think about, I want you to imagine what is it going to be like when it is 9 p.m. and you're in your office and you're doing this work? Or what is it going to be like when you're at your kids' game, and you're firing off emails?
Whatever it is, whatever that trade-off is, bring it into clear view. And sometimes the trade-offs will be, absolutely, this is definitely what I want to do. It is worth it. I'm going to, for a period of time, set these other things aside as priorities so that I can create space for this, or I'm going to come up with some creative solutions for how I'm going to make this work, and you do decide to do it. I'm not trying to be a Desi Downer about this. I think as you're listening to this, you could be thinking of, well, if I start to look at what the whole cost of something is, I'm never going to do anything ever again because it's all going to be a lot.
That can be true. I mean, anything big we take on is going to have a lot of complex pieces, and it's going to take time, it's going to take effort, it's going to take energy, for sure. But you still might want to choose it because of ultimately what you're creating as a designer CEO. All that I'm saying here is let's choose purposefully with what you do. And let's do that with this all-encompassing vantage point because then what you do is you choose to move forward knowing what trade-offs you're making and knowing what space you need to clear, what resources you need to call in.
And you also can get creative about things, like you can adjust timelines for the goals or projects so that it fits in the way that you want it to fit in, and you can know that you are choosing your future on purpose and because you really like your reasons for the choices you're making. And that is such an empowered place to achieve goals from. And it's so much better than I should be doing this or, gosh, I feel behind. I should try and catch up, or I want to do these things, and if I don't, then I won't succeed, right?
So we can always be looking at what is it that I want to have happen, what is the way I want to have that happen, and knowing the whole cost is going to help you understand the best path forward for you.
And so it very much is a reality check. Sometimes it's a little confronting, and it's going to help you get your goals achieved. That's ultimately what you want. So you could say there is a cost to knowing the whole cost, but for me, that is an investment that is absolutely worth it. When you do this process alongside setting your 2026 goals, planning is actually going to become easier. I know that this is a new step for some of you, and so there might be some friction at first, but it does make it easier. And you're going to know what you need to do and what's required to make it happen.
What happens then is you can more easily honor your capacity and honor your goals right alongside it. And you can make adjustments to create more time or space for these priorities that you want to bring into the fold. And that could look so many different ways.
What ends up happening is that you're able to plan in a way that really honors your ebb and flow of capacity because that's not just a consistent thing either. And you can make adjustments needed to create more time and space, whether that means you are going full steam ahead and you need to clear the decks for some of these priorities you're going to implement, or it means you're adjusting those priorities and chunking them out in different ways, or maybe they look a little bit different than you originally thought they would in order to make them still happen.
Many of the clients I work with are running at full capacity as it is, but then set their goals as if the start of the year is this blank slate or empty container that's ready to be filled. And that is just simply not the case. There's going to always be client projects and likely things that got started from last year that are being carried over, and of course, your life and what you want for yourself personally. And then there's the things that you have control over for the most part or have more influence over, and then there's going to be the unexpected things popping up whenever and however it always does.
And so we want to have a plan to achieve the goals that has some flexibility, that has some space for life to be what it is, to have business ebb and evolve with you. And when you understand what it is that the cost is of your goal, you can more easily adapt and change and pivot as you need.
Taking the time to look at the entire cost of a goal really is how you can sidestep the sinking of plans that happens when you ignore what I just talked about, right? Of things coming up and business and life being what it is, right? So you can avoid sinking those plans with something that is an avoidable problem, and that is factoring the whole cost before you commit.
What's going to happen is you're just going to have so much more energy to devote to what you do commit to and stop wasting time and energy on what isn't meant for now. It means more focus, more momentum, and real, meaning completed, results. All of which I know is what you want more of in your business, not a wish list.
As a final reminder, Create Your 2026 Roadmap is kicking off this Friday, and you can get all the details at DesiID.com/2026roadmap. And we will be setting these priorities, we'll be crafting your vision for the year, and we'll be taking into account the whole cost as you do that. It is definitely not too late to join us.
We're going to be doing the work of mapping out your year, quarter by quarter, on the call. So there's nothing you really need to do before you show up. You just need to show up. And that means you can sign up today and join us later this week. Of course, if you have a scheduling conflict, I completely understand that. There will be replays and the opportunity to submit your questions ahead of time. That's worked really well in the past for others. So don't let that be a reason for you to not get this support. There will be still a way for you to participate in whatever variation of this works for you.
I hope you enjoyed this one. I hope it shifted something for you, and I'll be back in two weeks with a brand new episode. And until then, I'm wishing you a beautiful start to the new year.
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit DesiCreswell.com, where you’ll get immediate access to a variety of free resources to help you take what you learn on the podcast and put it into action. And if you love what you’re hearing, be sure to rate, review, and follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ll talk to you next week.
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