Stop.
Sit.
Close your eyes.
Focus on your breathing.
Now visualize what your business looks like in 3 ~5 years.
What will you be doing?
What will be your business legacy?
How will you measure the progress?
Will you still be the owner?
What is your strategic plan?
Are you growing the business for the experience, challenge and reward of growing and managing a larger business?
When I ask a lot of my clients to give me the 3 ~ 5-year outlook, they find this one of the most difficult things to do. Quite often, they have not thought about it. If they have thought about it, they have not thought through the critical milestones.
There is a myriad of mid-term planning documents available on the web. All of them have very fancy diagrams, arrows and aspirational ways of achieving the strategic plan.
Without clear goals and a plan, human nature usually dictates that you will eventually become fatigued with the day to day challenge of running a business. Some business partners I work with have been successfully run their business for nearly eight years. As the fatigue starts to set in, they wonder what the point is or what is in store for them and the business.
Executive Summary:
Without clear goals and a plan, you will eventually become fatigued with the day to day challenge of running a business.
Taking time to visualise and put in your own words what you are passionate about can be very energizing and produce a clear and aligned purpose.
“Achievable” means available skills, financial resources and market positioning.