How to make better decisions and create a more intentional and aligned business

Clients often ask me a question such as “should I start my own Facebook group?” or “should I be using Twitter?” or say things like “I need to write a business plan” or “I want to run a workshop” – and want to know whether I think it’s a good idea or not.

My answer is never a simple yes or no. I’m a coach and I’m curious to understand their reasons, therefore I ask questions to determine the best decision or outcome for them.

We business owners all have these kinds of questions and decisions to make all the time. We’re always striving for a better way of doing something or for the next strategy that will get results – especially when we see others getting results.

Your business will always be evolving too – change is OK!

But how to keep it aligned and succeed in making these decisions easier?

I always get them to think about what their aim, goal or intention to do it, is first.

I’ll ask questions like:

Why do you want to?

Why do you think you need to?

What will you use it for?

What do you want to achieve?

Does it fit with your bigger/longer term goals or will it help you achieve them?

Then together we can discuss their thoughts and reasons before they make a decision.

There are so many benefits to getting clear on your aim before starting anything or prior to making a decision and it will help you to make better decisions and to live (and do business) with more alignment to your truth.

Here are three very good reasons to get practised at getting clear on your intention before taking action.

#1 Staying aligned

Clarifying your intention or aim for everything stops you from being a busy fool, helps you to waste less time on the wrong things and it helps you get out of ‘shoulds’ (ie doing things because you think you should) as it encourages you to keep tuning in to your truth in any given moment – which brings more alignment to your life and business.

It’s very easy to give up your own inner knowing and power by listening too much to others, especially to experts and doing what you think you ‘should’ instead of what you feel you want to do or what you know will be the right thing (as far as you can tell in the now), based on more conscious thought.

#2 Easy to implement

Knowing your aim also brings clarity as to how best to execute or implement something too. For example, writing a business plan for yourself could look very different to writing a business plan to apply for finance.

Starting a Facebook group or going on a new platform without thinking it through and creating a strategy will likely be disastrous and a lot of hard work for no, or very little, results. Plus it’ll be hard to do as you’ve no direction to follow because you don’t know what you want to achieve, so you’re really stumbling blind.

If you’re not clear on your intended results you probably won’t achieve what you want!

#3 More strategic

Having a clear goal is also key to creating a clear and effective strategy especially when it comes to marketing activity. How can you possibly create effective marketing content if you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve? You can’t.

You may think that you know your goal for every social media post is simply to get more clients, but the intention should be more specific and nuanced than that. Do you want to connect with your audience, do you want them to take a specific action, do you want to inspire or motivate?

The more you tune into your intention for everything, the quicker you can know what it is. So I’m not talking about taking an extra 5 minutes over everything you do, this process becomes pretty quick and almost unconscious over time, with practice.

Accomplish

This is why, the first step in my 10-step process, ACCOMPLISH, to successfully market any service, event, product or course, is to get clear on your AIM(S) (ie intention or goals).

If you’d like to learn the other 9 steps to successfully marketing anything, come to my upcoming workshop, Authentic Marketing for Beginners and Beyond or find out about working with me 1-2-1 by booking a discovery call with me here.

Hils x