Have You Done Planning And Goal-Setting For 2021? - You Know You Ought To, But...

“You must be joking - is it even possible after the year we’ve just had?”, has been the typical response I’ve received when reminding the business owners that I coach that it is time for planning and goal setting for the 2021 trading year.

Despite the fact that very possibly we can’t see even a week ahead, let alone a year, and that many of us are exhausted by just surviving 2020, business planning remains as relevant as it has ever been.

Why is this still so important

Having detail around our current net position and where we need to end up are the starting points for any plan. These plans may be compromised and worse than we’d hoped, feeling out of the realm of possibility - but nevertheless our net present position is still calculable, and our future is still something we can picture and dream of and strive towards.

The fact is that our plan or road map is the ‘true north’ of our business. It may have gotten a lot more complicated and now needs to be tweaked and reviewed much more regularly than ordinarily - hourly on some days – but without it we remain the poorer as business owners.

Additionally on the motivational front, as humans we are enormously resilient. Even if our starting point seems to be off an impossibly low base thanks to COVID, by stating out loud where we want to go, we can focus all our execution efforts on working on the solutions. By planning, re-visioning and goal setting, we allow ourselves to employ our subconscious, galvanize the law of attraction, rally the team and provide an essential context to prioritise.