Previously, when it comes to my CEO operating system documents, I’ve mentioned personal goals being at the top of the ‘importance tree’. Now, in this blog post, I’m going to run through what these are and how they determine the direction of my business journey.
I’ve had to ask myself over the years: why am I putting myself through this? Why do any of us, as business owners, put ourselves through what can be utter hell for the most part? (Yes, let’s be honest here.) What do I want to get out of this, and what do I want my legacy to be? These are questions I need to ask myself, and that I need to have answers to.
This is all detailed in my ‘personal goals’ document, which is updated often.
The document is broken up into the following sections:
Life goals
Goals for family, holidays, health, wealth and legacy. These are things I haven’t properly thought about before. I’ve previously just been doing it because it’s a job and I can pay bills – but now, I’ve got a really clear outlook on life and what I want.
Core focus
What do I need to concentrate my time on right now? There’s family, lifestyle, career, health, finances… endless routes to go down.
Career goals
What do I want to achieve in my career? I want to be an author, go to speaking engagements, mentor others and give back.
Another big career goal is to start my filmmaking back up again and have a one-hit wonder – whether that’s a short film or long-form feature film.
I also really want to own a football team within the next 10 years!
Short-term targets
What do I need to do right now to help me get to achieving those goals?
One of these that I’m in the red on is health. I need to get fit, I need to lose weight and I need to look after my general health better than I’m doing at the moment. Reading this document 2 or 3 times a week reminds me of that.
Finances
This section details what I want to be earning to enable me to have the lifestyle I want to have. This is really important, because that’s what the business is going to do for you: it will deliver the lifestyle that you choose.
By the way, there’s nothing elaborate on there – I just want to have a comfortable, debt-free life, and be able to do what I want to do whenever I want to do it. That’s all I ask!
Knowing all of this gives me a good steer on what I need from business to help me achieve those personal goals (mainly financial and career).
The business vision document
This document includes an outline of where I want the business to be in the next 10 years, which is where I want to exit the business.
It also includes our core values, the focus of the business, our purpose and our niche.
This is the document that sets the wheels in motion for everything else in the operating system. Everything must lead back to the main bigger picture goals.
For example, my dream goal for this business is to reach £10 million in revenue, a maximum of 40 staff and a maximum number of clients.
I want to get to a stage where we’ve got clients knocking on our door wanting to work with us, but unfortunately we’re saying no because we’re at our limit. That’s to help us with sustainability, because I don’t want to get to that £200 million scale with hundreds of staff. This leaves us vulnerable if there’s a downturn in the economy.
So, those are the goals I have for my life and career – which give you a little more insight into how I do business. I’d love to know how your own goals define your business decisions. If you don’t have any concrete goals, this is definitely a very important place to start!
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Or if you want to chat to me directly, you can contact me here or email me at dannylacey@stadamedia.co.uk.