Goals: Direction Determines Destination
As a personal business coach I collaborate with and support self-employed business owners, entrepreneurs, solo professionals and individuals to set goals to design the business and life they desire.
Goal setting is critical to success. If you look at the greatest achievers in life they are people who set goals for themselves and then work hard to reach them.
What Are Goals?
There are many definitions. Here’s the one I like the best. Goals are dreams with a deadline. Quite simply, goals are your roadmap to the future you desire.
Deadlines are important. If you have goals and say that you want to accomplish them someday or sometime they are not really goals. Having a deadline is a call to action. And this call to action starts to shape your daily life to build the future you desire.
Without a deadline a goal becomes a positive wish. And a positive wish is code for; “There’s not much happening around here.”
Why Have Goals?
In running a small business or starting your own business you have goals. Starting out, for most small businesses it is survival followed by some type of growth. Now you have achieved survival. What’s next?
In my business growth coaching practice this is where I see the seeds of failure being planted. After survival and some growth most self-employed business owners don’t have much planned. They don’t have any clear goals for the future.
They have a lot of positive wishes. But, they don’t have any goals. Without goals they and their businesses start to wander. Every day begins to look the same. The momentum dies. The excitement is gone.
Having specific goals for the future demands that the present to become exciting. With goals, what you do in the present takes on meaning for you, your organization and your employees because you have something better planned.
And having something better planned is an important arrow in your quiver to build a sense of team and better business performance.
Small Business Without Goals
A small business or a business for any matter without goals is a business without direction. Direction determines destination. Without direction you will fail. Goals help you along the road to small business success and small business growth by giving you direction and a track to run on.
A business without goals is a business where deadening uniformity has set in. As a small business coach one of the first things I look at are the goals of the business owner for his business.
The next area I look at are the personal goals of the owner. In small business one of the most critical elements to success is the willingness of the owner to embrace his or her own personal development.
If the owner has no exciting vision for himself then it is difficult to create one for his business.
Goals Summary
Goals are dreams with deadlines. Goals create a vision of the future and bring excitement and purpose to the present. Goals for small business are important because direction determines destination. Goals are necessary not only for the business but for the business owner.
Seldom will the owner’s happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction and income exceed his personal development. Goals are the accelerant to make your vision of your small businesses’ future and your future a reality. Set goals and you will increase your odds of having the future you desire.
