Another year is coming to an end. Were you able to reach the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of 2014? Or did you have to pivot so many times that you had to scratch the old goals and never managed to define the new ones?
Devising a plan to achieve goals can get very challenging. Even when we take the time to do it, we quickly give up on our goals, because we never translate them into day-to-day actions that actually fit our very busy schedules.
As a result, our plans look wonderful on paper but are quite impossible to achieve.
How DO we create a plan that motivates us instead of bringing us down and making us feel bad about ourselves?
5 Steps for Realistic Planning
1. Accept that You’ll Never Stick to Your Plan 100%
Creating a detailed plan, especially several months in advance, and being able to stick to it 100% is simply impossible. We don’t work and live in a vacuum. Things happen. Sometimes something that you wished would never happen happens. Other times, the most amazing opportunity comes your way and you can’t pass on it. Or, even more often, things take much longer than you estimated. So, you’ll have to make adjustments and, possibly, go in a direction that’s not in your plan. And it’s OK. Don’t be harsh on yourself. Evaluate your priorities and act accordingly.
Action Step: Look back on 2014 and congratulate yourself on your wins and forgive yourself for situations where you fell short. I’m sure both wins and failures taught you invaluable lessons. So they’re all things to be grateful for J. Now, turn the leaf.
2. Set One Main Goal for 2015
Since you can’t pre-plan every minute of your day and expect never to deviate from that plan, don’t waste your time with this ineffective strategy. Instead, establish a guiding light, a single overarching goal for 2015. This way when you find yourself at a crossroads, you’ll be able to evaluate each option in relation to whether or not it will take you closer to your ultimate goal.
My goal for 2015 is to scale my business so that I increase my revenue by 30% while decreasing by 30% the amount of time I spend working. I know that if I’m more intentional about what I do and how I do things in my business, I’ll become more efficient and create more physical and emotional space for more offerings and time off.
Action Step: Set an overarching goal for 2015. Go beyond specifying your yearly revenue figure. Nothing’s wrong with that, but if money is not what actually drives you, you’ll find it rather hard to motivate yourself by hitting the number goals throughout the year.
3. Envision Your Business When You’ve Reached That Goal
Imagine that it’s 12 months from today. Look at your business from this perspective. What exactly have you been able to accomplish? What are the conditions around you? What’s changed in terms of structures in your business? What about your team? Has it grown or did you get rid of contractors that you weren’t utilizing to their full potential? Don’t just look at those conditions as a dreamer. Look as a strategist. Notice what are the key pieces that need to be in place so that you can fulfill your goal.
In order to scale my business, I need to optimize my day-to-day systems to ensure that the quality of my work meets my high standards. For me, this means making sure I have reliable client intake and client management systems.
Now, that I have a number of products—Systematic Success, Evernote for Small Business, and Asana for Small Business—what’s vital is a larger email list and opportunities to present my products to the audiences that need them most. Thus, I also need solid promotional and launch systems.
In addition to that, as new people join my list but don’t necessarily buy something from me right away, I want to continuously deliver high value by relying on my content marketing and social media systems.
Last, but not least, I need to consistently prioritize my tasks to delegate the ones that don’t need to be performed by me.
Action Step: Describe conditions in your business and life when your goal is fulfilled. Remember to look at things objectively.
4. Define Smaller Initiatives to Achieve Your Big Goal
Now that you’ve defined what you are working towards, look at different activities you need to plan for the next 12 months. Before you start testing something new, though, look back and notice what worked for you in the past. If your overarching goal is a certain amount in revenues, look at the offering(s) that made you most money to date—could you sell more of those? If your goal is related to growing your list, determine tactics that generated most sign ups (e.g., webinars, guest posts, joint ventures, etc.).
When it comes to promotion, what worked for me in the past were Google Hangouts and partnerships. So, that’s something that I’m going to concentrate on in 2015. As for my blog readers, besides the how-tos and tool recommendations, they love it when I take them behind the scenes and show how I do something in my own business. You can expect that from me on a regular basis as well.
Action Step: Define 3-6 smaller initiatives (project or strategies) you will take on in the next 12 months to achieve your big goal.
5. Break Your Initiatives Into Day-to-Day Tiny Actions
By now you’ve broken down your BIG goal into small initiatives, many of which are things that you’ve already tried and have a basic structure for (at least in your head). You know what goes into making those projects happen. List the steps you need to take, assign deadlines, and treat those items as priorities when the time comes to work on them.
What’s on my calendar for the next 12 months are revising one by one of my own systems, doing monthly Google Hangouts to show ways to establish and manage business systems using Evernote and Asana, publishing “behind-the-scenes” blog series, and religiously following my relationship building system to make new connections and nurture key friendships.
Action Step: Take each of the initiatives you’ve defined in #4 and break them down into steps. Move them into your calendar, task, or project management system and assign deadlines. When the time comes to work on those actions, treat them like client appointments—appointments that you cannot miss.
Outside of those scheduled actions, you can test other tactics or experiment with new initiatives. However, if you continue checking off the list your priorities and keeping an eye on your guiding light, 12 months from now you will find yourself living the vision you created in #3.
Ready for the ride?
Back to You
What will you be focusing on in 2015? What is your big overarching goal for the next 12 months?
