07 Feb What do you do when you don’t hit your business goals
In December, we talked about the various ways to get motivated and set out new business goals that you’d like to achieve over the coming year. The thing is, we tend to set ourselves New Year’s Resolutions – whether personal or business – and then become really down-hearted if we don’t achieve them all, feeling like a failure, when sometimes it’s the goal that goal wasn’t right.
So what do you do when you don’t hit your goals? Firstly, don’t panic!
- Plan for failure
This may sound counterintuitive, but according to expert Jen Shirkani, emotional intelligence (EQ) can sometimes be more important that one’s actual intelligence (IQ) when it comes to attaining success, either in life or in a career. Building in scope for potential failure means you’re emotionally involved in the process of achieving your goals, and this level of consciousness (and also conscientiousness) means you’re much more likely to succeed.
- Make yourself accountable
If we let ourselves down, that’s one thing. But for most of us, letting down members of our team can invoke a sense of shame that is enough to spur us on to finish the task in hand. Therefore, sharing your goals with others, as well as regular progress updates, can give you just the level of motivation you need to succeed.
- Change the goal post
This doesn’t mean giving up on your goal altogether, but it does mean being more realistic in terms of how and when you achieve your ultimate objectives. For example, consider whether your original timescale was realistic? If not, try extending the deadline to a more manageable point in time, allowing for the other urgent tasks you need to complete. Then set a decent chunk of time aside for this particular goal, in your diary if necessary. And to avoid having to reschedule it again, be disciplined and try to stick to the time slot if at all possible.
- Break down your goals
If your initial goal turned out to be too ambitious, try breaking it down in into bite-size pieces. The more manageable each part of the goal is, the more confidence and motivation you’ll have to complete the next step, and ultimately, the whole project.
- Limit the number of goals
At Organised You, we’re advocates of planning ahead into the future, so if you can map out the coming month, or even the whole of 2020, that’s a fantastic first step to becoming organised and ahead of the game. But the thing to remember here is, don’t set yourself too many goals in any given week/month etc.
- Strike a balance
Remember that in any given period of time, you can do anything but not everything. Therefore, it’s important to reach the optimum balance between your business goals and your personal goals. For instance, one month, you may be consciously focussing on driving your business forward, requiring you to keep your personal goals on the backburner. But equally, the next month, it’s ok to switch around your priorities so that you consciously focus on one or more of your personal goals, whilst keep your business goals ticking over. You’ll feel much more focussed in the long run by taking a break from the burden of incomplete business tasks and coming back to them afresh.
- Celebrate your successes!
This one is really simple. Don’t spend all your time fretting about the things you haven’t accomplished. Instead, celebrate elements of the goals you have achieved, and you’ll soon gain the motivation to complete other parts of the goal.
- Remember – a goal is just a goal
It’s not the end of the world – or your business – if you don’t achieve your goals in the exact way, or timeframe, that you originally had in mind. It’s all-too easy, even natural, to become a bit of a control freak when it comes to your business. Learning to adapt your business vision to changing circumstances (some of which will be beyond your control) is a really difficult skill. But once you crack it, it’ll make your life a whole lot easier and relieve a great deal of the pressure you’ve been feeling to accomplish your goals.
If any of the above applies to the goals you’ve set, this is an official reminder from the Organised You team to BE KINDER to yourself, and not to give up! If you need any help with your 2020 planning, drop us a line at karlene@organisedyou.com and we’d be happy to break down your goals with you.
