Are your personal and business goals aligned, and is your business contributing to your overarching reason why? These are two key questions I’ve been looking at with my clients lately.
It feels to me that the impact of the ongoing recovery from the pandemic on the global economy will make 2023 another bumpy ride. So, I’ve been working with my clients to reflect on their purpose and bring their strong reason why back to the top of mind.
The alignment of what you do in your business to your personal goals in my opinion sparks your motivation whilst also fuelling the right high payoff activities you need to execute.
Are your business goals contributing or delivering on your personal goals?
As an example of alignment, if you want more time for your family, hobbies or interests, does your business allow for that time? If you need money to spend on something or to maintain a particular lifestyle, do your business goals help generate the profit and cash to do it?
If you want to reduce stress, does your business goal allow that, or is it in fact contributing to the stress as you pedal furiously towards a goal that isn’t working, or is a distraction from your best focus?
The question is, how do you ensure your business IS contributing to your reason why? Let’s take a retrospective look at the foundations of your business strategy.
Go back to ‘why’
The place where it all began – why are you here? Why are you doing what you do?
Ask yourself, are my daily, weekly, monthly activities helping me move closer to my reason why? Is the compromise worth the pay-off?
You won’t always be able to achieve a goal without compromise, and maintaining a focus on your reason why will help you through that. However, you must recognise the moment when the activities stop moving you closer to your goal and just become compromises without the pay-off, and to do that, look back at your goals.
Go back to your goals
If you have made SMART goals, there is a Time constraint on each one. Have you run over that time? Can you now consider if that goal was Achievable or not? Do you simply need to change the time element, or can you break the goal down further into something smaller and more achievable? Is it even still Relevant?
Review your plan
Once again, your goals are time constrained, so how often are you reviewing your activities vs pay-offs? Is your end-goal too far in your future to maintain a strong focus? Setting your sights too far ahead can actually allow distractions and ‘the next shiny thing’ to creep in. Perhaps try more strategic planning by implementing a 90-day or 60-day plan to create closer milestones.
The aim of this article is to help you see the link between your business goals and your personal goals, and highlight the path to success. I hope that by re-addressing the foundations of your business; the ‘why’, goals and planning, it becomes stronger at serving its purpose – to get you where you want and deserve to be.
For a conversation about any of the topics raised, please get in touch, or if you’d like further reading try the search function on the right.