How to a Build an Achievable Business/Life Plan

Thomas Edison said, “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning, ”Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind” and Zig Ziglar said “Unless you have a definite, precise, clearly set of goals, you are not going to realize the maximum potential that lies within you.”

My team and I have been doing business planning for years and my husband, family and I have been doing life planning even longer. Planning for the next year is something we do every year which has drawn us closer as a family and created great synergy with my business associates. I am hoping to encourage you to do the same for the New Year, 2021, even if it’s just you. It’s never too late to start to rewrite or create the story of your life.

• The first thing we do is to look back over the last year and determine what were our wins and what were our losses.
  • This is a very helpful exercise, especially if you thought you missed the mark on one of your goals. The real benefit to keeping this list year after year is in the retrospective of what worked and what didn’t. Is there a recurring theme in my life that I (we as a team) need to address?
  • Wins were things we planned which were executed and achieved.
  • Losses were where we stopped short of achieving our goals. We don’t stop with just listing the losses. We discuss and write down what we gained in that loss and share that with our group. Sometimes when we don’t achieve a goal, the lesson is in what happened in its place which provided the best learning opportunity.
• Check-in with your team and or family to see if everyone is still aligned with the mission, vision, and values of the organization. (If you haven’t done this exercise, reach out to me and I can coach you on how to define these for your team/family.)
  • How has your mission changed? Can you get an agreement on what the new mission should be?
  • How are each of you living your mission, vision, and values? Share examples with your team and or family so that everyone feels they are contributing to moving the mission and vision forward, however fast or slow the perceived progress.
• If you have an agenda for your goal planning session, assign a task to each person in order for them to do the research or provide insight.
  • Having family members or team members participate in the agenda gives ownership to everyone on how the goals are to be achieved as well as provide different yet vital insights into the past, present, and future of the organization.
  • Together we achieve more!
• Have a short, quarterly meeting to check in with everyone regarding how they’re doing.
  • Sometimes the best-laid plans can’t or don’t happen. Great example: COVID19.
  • If the goals need to be adjusted the quarterly meeting is the time to do it.
  • Celebrate wins with the team/family.
  • What were our learning “opportunities?”
  • How can we help one another? Since most people have a hard time asking for help, this is a great exercise as well as role modeling how asking for help can be good for the team as well as the individual.

Lastly, give yourself grace if you aren’t able to achieve your goals. Life kicks us around enough without beating ourselves up too.

Brian Tracy says, “Less than 3% of Americans have written goals.”

Bravo! You’re part of an elite group.

Now let’s go slay some dragons!

Sarah Chatel is Principle/Owner of Chatel Group at Keller Williams Atlanta Midtown. When she’s not helping Buyers and Sellers with Real Estate, you can find her playing with her 2 Coton du Tulear dogs, Emma and Cody, or traveling to parts unknown with her husband Peter. Sarah and Peter have a blended family of 5 adult children and 3 grandchildren.

You can find her on Linkedin, Instagram, or Facebook.