The first quarter of 2009 is complete and we’re halfway through the first month of Q2! It is a perfect time to stop, take a look at the goals and objectives we set for ourselves back in January, reflect on the steps we’ve taken so far to achieve these goals, evaluate our progress and take this opportunity to make some adjustments.
In January, I blogged about planning goals and not making resolutions in my post, http://traintobethebest.blogspot.com/2009/01/happy-new-year-is-it-too-late-to-keep.html, and I talked about the steps and activities we need to take to achieve these goals. The economy has had a huge impact on us so far and will continue to do so for some time. We need to center the needle on our original plans and move forward from there. By taking a quick evaluation and making adjustments, we can get back on course and drastically increase our chances of success.
Process
Every good planning process is really a series of four steps that flow in a continual, circular pattern. The initial step is to set and agree to the plan which should then be followed by the next step which is to execute the plan. In our case, this would be the activities or actions we’ve taken to achieve our goals in the first quarter. What we’re focusing on now is evaluating where we are on the path to reaching those goals and thinking through any tweaks or adjustments we need to make at this point in time.
Where are your goals?
If you can’t find your goal sheet that is the first challenge you’ve got to overcome! Our goals need to be visible and ideally we should be thinking about them every day. Post them on your wall in your office, on your car visor, on your bathroom mirror – someplace you where you’ll see them and they will be top of mind. Too often, personally and in business, we’ll put all this time and effort into planning and then proceed to ignore and forget about the document until we need to plan for the upcoming year. If you’ve done this, no worries, blow the dust off your goal sheet and get started now!
Evaluate & Adjust
This is an important step. We may discover that there are goals we totally lost focus on and that’s fine. We may also discover that we’ve made some real progress on certain goals and even tackled objectives that we didn’t list or possibly didn’t even exist when we made our plan. We can take this opportunity to review and adjust our timing, scrap goals that aren’t a priority and add new ones that are more relevant now. In today’s business environment it could be argued that we should be making adjustments daily! One point to remember, adjustments can be a two way street – feel free to adjust up – take the opportunity to make big..BIGGER. If you’ve achieved some early success, raise your goals and keep going. By increasing your goal the size of the prize will increase as well.
Process
Every good planning process is really a series of four steps that flow in a continual, circular pattern. The initial step is to set and agree to the plan which should then be followed by the next step which is to execute the plan. In our case, this would be the activities or actions we’ve taken to achieve our goals in the first quarter. What we’re focusing on now is evaluating where we are on the path to reaching those goals and thinking through any tweaks or adjustments we need to make at this point in time.
Where are your goals?
If you can’t find your goal sheet that is the first challenge you’ve got to overcome! Our goals need to be visible and ideally we should be thinking about them every day. Post them on your wall in your office, on your car visor, on your bathroom mirror – someplace you where you’ll see them and they will be top of mind. Too often, personally and in business, we’ll put all this time and effort into planning and then proceed to ignore and forget about the document until we need to plan for the upcoming year. If you’ve done this, no worries, blow the dust off your goal sheet and get started now!
Evaluate & Adjust
This is an important step. We may discover that there are goals we totally lost focus on and that’s fine. We may also discover that we’ve made some real progress on certain goals and even tackled objectives that we didn’t list or possibly didn’t even exist when we made our plan. We can take this opportunity to review and adjust our timing, scrap goals that aren’t a priority and add new ones that are more relevant now. In today’s business environment it could be argued that we should be making adjustments daily! One point to remember, adjustments can be a two way street – feel free to adjust up – take the opportunity to make big..BIGGER. If you’ve achieved some early success, raise your goals and keep going. By increasing your goal the size of the prize will increase as well.
Celebrate all successes to date and re-engage with yourself on meeting and exceeding your plans for the year. Good luck.
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