It’s a compass, not a map

Are you the kind of person who thrives on goals?

For me, goal setting has always been really helpful. They provide with a game to win and a high score to beat. As a competitive person, goals work great for me.

But goals don’t click for everyone and they’re not without their issues…

Goals, especially annual ones, ask you to predict the future. As business owners we often don’t know where the day will take us when we wake up, let alone 365 of them. Too often these goals end up irrelevant by the time we hit June.

And the pass/fail nature of goals doesn’t always tell the whole story. Coming up a hair short means you’ve ‘failed’, even if you’ve made tremendous progress — which can be discouraging.

I don’t think this means we should go into the new year directionless — so let me share an alternative if goals aren’t your thing…

Instead of setting goals for 2024, what if you set a theme?

Let’s imagine your theme for the new year is “Connection”. Every week you carve out time for meaningful conversations with past clients, you immerse yourself in community events, and you revamp your social media strategy to focus on building community.

Each decision, from choosing new tools to revamping old processes, is filtered through the question “How can I change this to deepen my connections?”.

A theme isn’t a rigid goal; it’s a lens to see your business through. It’s a compass — not a map — that allows you to pivot and adjust as you make your way forward. It’s doesn’t just transform what you do, but how you do it.

A year from now, instead of measuring whether you made or missed your goal, you can reflect on how your theme shaped your business.

Of course, you’re not limited to the “connection” theme… there are all kinds of ideas, like simplicity, growth, innovation, balance, organization, creativity, or education that might resonate better with you.

Whether you go with goals or set a theme (I may do both!), remember, that’s just the start. They’re not self-fulfilling prophecies; both need your commitment, attention, focus, and — most importantly — actions to actually move your business forward.

As of now we got more than a month to decide how we want to tackle 2024, but the new year will be here before you know it, so let’s get started!