Q1 Check-In: Goals and Getting Intentional

Have you been Working IN your business or ON your business?

Did you recently look at your calendar and realize we’re almost at the end of March? Do you wonder how time flies and your goals never get accomplished? 

What could be happening to you, which happens to many of us, is that you are spending the overwhelming majority of your time working IN your business rather than ON your business. Let me know if this sounds familiar:

You are a leader, entrepreneur, business owner, or non-profit executive and you are working your bee-hind off. You need another 40 hours in your week just to catch up with what’s going on today. You’ve got exciting goals and told others earlier this year about the new products, services and audiences you are creating. You are working, working, working, working …. and feel like you are getting nowhere. You look up, it’s the end of first quarter and progress toward your bigger goals for the year is nowhere in sight.

Ring any bells? If so, you must be human! This happens to all of us at times.

We can all get caught up in working IN our business vs ON our business. 

Working IN our business is certainly critical, but working ON our business is how we will really move forward. 

• When we are working IN our business we are busy acting on the tactical day to day, putting out fires, managing tasks. We’ve got our sleeves rolled up to our armpits, but, there’s always still more to do. Picture this: the exhausted you who just wants a nap.
• When we are working ON our business we are solving for the bigger problems in our business, like evaluating the pressures, problems and plans that our clients or targets have, understanding what's going on in the broader realm of our industries or our market sectors, getting in tune with what our customers need vs only serving them what they say they want. Picture this: the energized and engaged you.

Which Would You Rather Be?

When we work ON our business, we ensure that we’re positioning ourselves toward growth.

When we are intentional, we make decisions aligned with the future we want to create, based on our mission, vision and values, rather than making a decision that might only benefit us in the moment, at best.  Our businesses will never grow significantly if we are keeping ourselves stuck in the day-to-day execution of tasks. When we do this – we are surviving – and sometimes barely. Instead, let's all thrive. 

A Better Solution:

What has worked for me is intentionally shifting a portion of my time every week to work ON my business. Instead of spending 99% of our time working IN our business and putting out fires, I encourage you to gradually move to spending 10% or 20 % of our time to work ON the business itself.  What does this bring us? Progress. Real business development. Relationship depth, new opportunities, actually achieving our goals, growing our businesses and feeling successful. When I do this, I know what is RIGHT about my goals, my vision, my work. I am much more in tune with myself and what I am creating.

I know that when we are a new business owner, or when we are leading a non-profit and have little to no staff that we frequently get to be the “Jack and Jane of All Trades”. This often does have to happen to keep the business running. 

I encourage you to find some amount of time that you can intentionally carve out weekly, monthly and quarterly to develop your business proactively so that you do not lose sight of the bigger picture, your real mission, and what you are called to create in the world.

We're coming up on the end of the first quarter of 2019. I challenge you to set aside some time this week, take a step back and work ON your business.

Check your goals for the year. How far are you coming along toward them now that the first quarter is almost over? How can you measure your progress? How can you continue to measure progress in the next 9 months?

If you haven't made much progress on the goals: Examine if those goals are still the right ones. If they are, create a plan for how you will act on these in the next 9 months. If your goals turn out not to be the right ones for your business any longer, adjust your plan or create a new plan.

If you don’t have goals – this is a sure sign that you are spending too much time IN your business. Sit down and figure out a plan for how you can stop just surviving and instead create a space for thriving.

Our Rally Cry: Work ON the Business!

We, as owners and leaders are the only ones who are motivated to do this. If we aren’t excited about our future and moving our teams toward those goals, how can we expect our employees, volunteers and clients to be excited? It’s on us – it’s our opportunity.

Wishing you great success, always. - Kate Dowling

I am a business strategist and executive coach in the Twin Cities. I have over 15 years experience leading businesses of all sizes, globally, supporting teams and individuals in creating missions, visions, goals and strategies. If you are looking for someone to support you in working ON your business, please connect with me here or through my website at www.kwdowling.com.

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