Setting Timed Goals

Earlier, I wrote about how planning for businesses was difficult during the pandemic. It is tough to look toward the future when even day-to-day planning seemed so much in flux. Now that things are evening out, it is important to get that planning going again. This can be difficult for many, though, because of how topsy-turvy the COVID times left everything.

A way to get a handle on things is to break down the time periods in which you are going to handle them. This can be most difficult for people who are visionaries and like to imagine where things can be way down the road. These people do not have a flawed vision, it just needs to be placed in the proper context. Big dreams tend to be closer to 10-year dreams.

Their very label tells you that 10-year dreams cannot be accomplished overnight. So other markers need to be placed along the way that can be easier to aim toward, say some three-year or five-year goals, that can still serve as big milestones along the way.

We are still nowhere close to overnight, though, but I bet most business owners can provide some top-of-mind answers when it comes to tasks they would like to have accomplished at the end of one year. Now we’re getting to periods of time that one’s mind can grasp more easily.

But alas, there are reasons new year’s resolutions may be best known for their failure rate. It is really difficult to do something for an entire year. So let’s move the goalposts in even closer and set quarterly goals.

What we can do in 90 days is now a time period onto which we can really clamp. That feels close enough that you can then set plans for weekly accomplishments that will get you appreciably closer to them. Knock the weekly goals down and the quarterly ones are pulled closer.  Then set new weekly goals that pull them even closer. Once they are accomplished, set new quarterly goals and watch the further-out objectives get ever closer.

As the annual goals get closer, they start to move into the earlier categories, until maybe you could close them next quarter. This is all about steady progress and remaining accountable to the goals you set. And as always, if there is any way that we can help you get there, we are only too happy to help and bring those faraway big ideas closer to reality.
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Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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