eGuide’s Guide to Setting a Vision for 2024
By Gregory Perrine - eGuide Owner
The January Starting Line
No matter if you are on a fiscal year or a calendar year, January seems to always carry with it the weight of looking another 12 months in advance. This raises the age-old conversation within yourself and your organization of “This year I am going to do X” or, “This year X is going to be different”. For organization owners, especially those looking to continue to grow, it can feel like you completed one marathon and are immediately jumping into another one.
As we creep ever closer to the year ahead we recommend everyone take a moment to reflect on where they came from, where they are, and where they want to go. Sounds daunting, right? Well, we have a few pointers to help you break things down and solidify the vision. (Added Bonus: the same rules below can be applied to your personal life with a little tweaking!).
How To Come Up With A Vision For The Year Ahead
Go Big, Then Drill Down
No matter your stance on the popular book turned Netflix Documentary “The Secret”, to realize any goal you first need to first start with a vision. Instead of limiting yourself based on what you think you achieve, we recommend going BIG!
“Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars” - Norman Vincent Peale
Why hold back? If you want to double your business in 12 months, then set the vision. The logistics that will go into making that reality may tell you if that is an achievable goal or not, but for the sake of this step, the bigger the better.
Think Departmentally
According to a Global Consumer Survey conducted by Statista, only 39% of US adults made New Year’s Resolutions for 2022. That means over the majority of the US said, “Nah, I’m not even going to try”.
Why do you think that is?
Of course, there are probably a few factors, but we’ve definitely come across more than a few organizational leaders that get overwhelmed by the idea of setting, and sticking to, the goals for the year. A little analysis paralysis can be debilitating and can lead to just throwing in the towel before the race even starts.
So, how do you get over this?
Break it down! Treat your goals like that bag of fun-sized Halloween candy that seemed to vanish after a weekend. If you focus on a few questions like, “What does success look like for marketing next year?” or, “What partnerships could our organization benefit from to help us grow sales?” you could be dreaming big in no time.
No Wrong Answers
Barack Obama wrote the first draft of his 768-page book, A Promised Land, with pen and paper. Why? According to President Obama, typing things digitally leads to more copyediting while you write, making you focus more on what was said than what you are trying to say.
The same can be said for goal setting. While some ideas may not be the final ones you choose, why limit the brainstorming by stifling an idea from getting out?
Try adding some time parameters to your brainstorm. How many ideas can you come up with within 10 minutes, 5, 3? A little situational pressure may fire those synapses that much quicker resulting in some inspired ideas (along with a few extreme or silly ones as well).
Don’t Plan Your Vision Alone
Even if you are a solopreneur, a little conversation can go a long way in planning your goals. Pitching an idea to a friend, colleague, or fellow company leader can allow you to solidify the importance of the goal. This is the opportunity to explore the what-ifs, and start to scratch the surface of the how and why behind each idea.
Few people have the ability to truly see both sides of an argument, so having a teammate try to poke holes into some of the ideas is a great step to do after everything has hit the board. When it comes to collaboration take it from Ed Catmull, the founder of Pixar:
“Don’t wait for things to be perfect before you share them with others. Show early and show often. It’ll be pretty when we get there, but it won’t be pretty along the way.”
Ideas have to start from somewhere, and better ideas are produced with feedback and collaboration.
3 Things To Synthesize Your Big Picture
So now that you have some ideas, what do you do next? How do you start to drill down that daunting list of everything you could possibly hope to achieve in the year ahead, into a list that actually may have a chance of survival?
Don’t let that anxiety overtake you yet, just because you may not be able to get to everything in a year, doesn’t mean it’s worth throwing away. Just park it for a while and come back to it.
Here are some tips that can help you take all of those dreams and start to turn things into a reality.
1. Prioritize Your List
A small step back can produce a clearer picture. We recommend scanning all of your newly created goals and highlighting the ones that are most taking your attention. If you are using a physical whiteboard, circle them, if digital - change the sticky note to a different color.
After one round of prioritizing break out your top goals and go again. Try to drill it down to as few as possible, by asking yourself, why?
Why should this be a vision for next year? Why is this the right goal to focus on? Why would I not eliminate this from the list? Why? The more whys you can answer, the better the results will be.
2. List Methods and Estimated Timelines
As your visions start to take shape, start to apply the “How” logic to the plan. At eGuide, we leverage Marc Benioff’s V2MOM to help us take our visions into production. V2MOM stands for Values, Visions, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures. The methods explain the process of how you will achieve a vision, while the measures track the who, what, where, and when.
Painting a picture beyond January for your goals gives them a fighting chance, and as long as you remain diligent in tracking your measures, the likelihood of the vision being achieved is greatly increased (How’s that for self-fulfilling prophecy The Secret?!)
3. Be Realistic
I know we just said not to limit, but that was in the brainstorming phase. Following your brainstorm, it’s time to put on the gravity boots and come back down to earth. Really sit with the visions you are committing to and ask yourself if you really think they are achievable. If you’ve worked through your methods and measures, chances are you will be able to answer “yes”, but here’s where you should also look at overlap and bandwidth.
If you are only able to dedicate 20% of your time to work “on the business” instead of “for the business” is it really realistic that you are going to be attending 4 networking events a week?
If your one and only marketing person is already complaining that she doesn’t have enough time to complete all of the content that is required to keep current marketing initiatives going, do you think she is really going to have time to redesign the entire website before the end of the first quarter?
The more realistic your vision, the better the outcomes will be.
The What Ifs
If the pandemic illustrated one thing, it’s that all plans can be changed in an instant. But with that said, should we allow the “what ifs” to dictate our “what could be?”
We think not.
The nice thing about setting some goals and visions is that you also have the power to adapt them to the reality of the here and now when you get there. Sometimes you lose a key member of your team, or you need to take a leave of absence for medical reasons. It doesn’t mean that your vision is useless, it just needs a round of revisions.
The more your vision for the year is alive the easier it is to adapt it to current circumstances.
What Comes Next
So now that you are inspired to start putting pen to paper, what comes next?
Just go for it!
Try getting some big ideas out there and don’t hold yourself back. If you hit a roadblock, or for some, the brick wall that comes with this exercise, it’s okay. We are here to help and can guide you through our V2MOM Workshop.
Interested in learning more? For us, it starts with a conversation. Feel free to drop us a line and we’ll set up a time to chat as soon as possible.
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