How Setting Annual Business Goals Differs from Monthly S.M.A.R.T. Goals

As a business owner, it seems like we are always talking about goals. We’re either setting them at the beginning of each month, evaluating them towards the last week of the month so we know what to focus on for those last few work days, or thinking about the next ones we want to set but aren’t quite ready to do yet.

Then the end of the year rolls around and everyone is talking about goal setting. Well, I’ve got some breaking news for you that I am not reading in everyone else’s tips on setting annual goals:

Setting an annual goal is DIFFERENT from setting your monthly goals.

Shocking, I know. In fact, there are lots of benefits to annual goals beyond the whole “your life and business will get better”, which at this point should be a given in your knowledge of WHY goals matter.

Here are the top benefits of annual goals as I see them:

1. You have a 12 months instead of one to accomplish them

2. They don’t have to abide by the entire S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant or Realistic, Time-bound) framework, which I highly recommend using for monthly goals. Annual ones though only need to be relevant/realistic (enough so that you care about accomplishing it) and time bound.

Point 2 is my favorite because this lets us dream. It’s your pie in the sky moment of what you WANT next year to be. Dream it first then we can figure out how to accomplish it later.

In the video below I’ll walk you through exactly how this works and why my Scarlett O’Hara approach (“I can’t think about that today, I’ll think about that tomorrow.”) really sets you up for success, not just kicking the can down the line indefinitely.