The time between Thanksgiving and New Years always seems to go by in the blink of an eye. One minute you’re preparing turkey and the leaves are changing color, and before you know it you’re trying to remember to write the correct year on documents while snow covers the ground.
And while it can seem like there are not two free minutes to spare in the days and weeks leading up to January, it’s in your best interest to spend some time thinking about your business goals for the year to come. Consider the following questions to help ensure that you start the new calendar year off focused, and pointed toward success.
What is your overarching goal?
When plotting out your business objectives for the year, you may quickly find that you have a to-do list about a mile long. While it is admirable to want to accomplish a lot, trying to do too much can ultimately set you up for failure. Instead, think about one overarching goal to focus on. Perhaps it is revamping your brand visual identity, developing an impressive content hub, or generating more traffic to your website. If you try to do all of these things at once, you will likely not be successful on any single front; instead, focus wholeheartedly on a single effort—with supporting secondary goals—to realize a real difference.
What are the items that take priority?
While it is true that you should focus on a single overarching goal when planning out your time and effort for the year, there will likely be some additional items that also need to be taken care of as well. For example, perhaps there are time sensitive decisions that need to be made regarding your employees or office space; even though they may not fall under the purview of your key goal, they are still things that need to have a prominent position on your list of things to do.
Where is there opportunity?
When thinking about the various goals that you’d like to achieve for your business, it would behoove you to consider whether any of them would be more easily accomplished as a result of internal and external circumstances. Consider things like current clients, cash flow, and even the political landscape to help you determine whether one particular goal would make more sense to focus on than another. Another good factor to consider is where there is excitement on your team, and if your employees would be more likely to rally behind one goal versus another.
Remember, there is always room for course correction
Use the time over the holidays to reflect on your goals, and have conversations early on with key stakeholders. It’s important to understand that there may also be a number of factors that influence your goals over time, so try and maintain a balance between being flexible enough to capitalize on opportunity, but focused enough to pursue your key vision.