Sometime back in the late 1800’s, my great great grandfather homesteaded land in Oregon. The way I understand it, he found a plot of land he liked in the southern part of the state. This was his goal. He and his wife then settled on it.
You too can be a homesteader.
You have a chance to stake out your own plot in 2019. You can define where you want to be in the future… and then work it so that it is yours. And if you don’t, well, you will still be somewhere, just not where you want to be.
Life is this river and it just keeps rolling, and we are on it. We are not leaves floating rudderless. We have some choice about where we want to be 12 months from now. We can set a course and navigate and sail or row or jump out and paddle ourselves to where we want to be.
This is why we set goals and a course of action. We don’t want to wind up broken and dead on the rocks, or stuck idle in a rancid stinky lagoon that goes nowhere!
But when you do set goals for your business, or even for your career, they are often too lop-sided. They are not holistic. You might say that they are symptomatic. We may only shoot for the amount of money we want to make. This isn’t bad, it just isn’t enough. It is too superficial.
If you want to make more money, you have to see more people. If you want to see more people, you have to take better care of them. To do so, you have to improve your services. To do this, you have to improve your expertise and the expertise of others who see your patients. Lastly, you can’t be an old grouch, unhappy with a poorly managed personal life.
You are in the business of improvement! To improve people, you also have to improve your business. To improve your business, you have to improve the professional skill of each member of the business. Lastly, each member of the team has to work on self-improvement.
Make these into your goals.
DRIVE each other to achieve these goals.
Be GOAL DRIVEN!!
IF this is done, how could you – or anyone lose? Everyone wins.
So, to keep it simple, see the attached worksheet. Set your goals for each area, and every three months, ESCAPE to a place where there is no interruption, your “laboratory,” to confront how you did and make any necessary adjustments to your plans and continue your journey to your yearly goals.
Yearly Goals Worksheet — Link
Set aside 2 or more hours at the beginning of the year and the beginning of each new quarter (3-month period) to review your past and set new goals.
To do this, you must get away. Turn off the phones and remove ALL distractions. You are going to your Goals Laboratory and humbly review the past and boldly make new plans for the future.
You will fall off the rails, so every three months, you will have already scheduled time to review your failings and triumphs and reset. You can now get back on track and re-plan and go forward to the next three-month marker.
Use the worksheet to help you have a Goal Driven year.
Good travels and Bon Voyage.
— Ed
