The symbolic start of a new year leads many people around the world to set new goals and challenges for themselves for the upcoming 12 months. The same can be said for setting new business goals. Here are 5 top reasons why you should be setting business goals every year.
1. Motivate and focus
One of the most fundamental parts of a business plan is being able to look at the year ahead and realise what is actually possible for your business. No matter the size of your business, you should always be aiming big, and creating the time and space in order to do that will inject some motivation into your daily work life! It will also help your team members with motivation to achieve their individual goals within the business, as they will know what they are reaching for.
2. Set priorities
Do you often find yourself getting side-tracked by tasks that don’t help yourself or your business to grow? With detailed business goals in place, you can prioritise your time to focus on the tasks that push you towards your goals. For the rest, you can delegate down where appropriate or use a default diary to limit the time spent on them.
3. Easier decision-making
In a similar vein to helping you set your priorities, having a business plan will also help you make decisions. Maybe you’re unsure whether to invest more time and money in a particular area of your business, hire a new recruit or develop a new marketing strategy. Knowing your overall business goals for the next year and beyond will help you in making those decisions. Just remember that your business plans are never static, so what may be taken out of the running now may find itself being utilised later down the line.
4. Measure success
When you know where you are heading and have specific key performance indicators to show you have reached your goal, you have a much clearer measure of your success. With a business plan, you will know how far you have to go from this point until the end of the year, and you will be able to determine if you are on track 6 months in. Without it, you won’t know if you are truly achieving what you set out to!
5. Baseline for reviews
Reviews of your business and team members should take place on a regular basis, whether that is every 3, 6 or 12 months. Having goals in place will allow you to accurately track progress between each review and determine if things are going well or if something needs to change. Without goals in
place, it can be tricky to measure just how much progress is being made and if that progress is in the right direction.
How to set your goals…
Dream board:
If you’ve never heard of a dream board or vision board before, it’s a tool that makes use of both sides of the brain to engage words and images into manifesting your best life. You start by imagining what you want your life to be like within a set time frame, and then you put words and images to the different areas of your life you want to set goals for.
Business plan:
A task often abandoned in the start-up phase, a business plan is a document that needs nurturing every year to ensure your business stays on the right path through any challenges and changes. It will help you to not only set your goals for the year but also plan how you will reach them.
Whether you’re an avid goal setter or just getting started with it, knowing why you’re setting goals can be the all-important ingredient to sticking to them throughout the year. To help you along the way, download a copy of a simple business plan template and guide to help you with creating your dream board.
