Reset your 2020 goals
I thrive on goals. Set them and I have something to focus on. Every January I devote time to establishing my plan for the year. I have objectives and goals that help me guarantee I am making progress. 2020 was no different: I want to improve my fitness so I can hike steeper mountains, and I have goals around my weekly workouts that will help me continue making progress towards my ultimate objective. The same applies in my business. I created my plan for the year and established objectives for the key functional areas. I set up monthly or quarterly goals to track my progress and ensure I am continually moving forward.
Here we are at the second half of 2020, and no one is where they planned to be at this point in the year. A pandemic, closed schools and workplaces, an economic downturn, protests and riots have caused every single one of us to shift gears. As business owners and leaders, it is easy to look at the plan you had for 2020, throw it out the window and swear off building a new plan. You might be thinking there is no reason to have a plan when everything is so unpredictable.
The great thing about goals is that when they become meaningless, they can be changed. There are two quarters left in 2020. That means there are two quarters to make progress, make an impact and feel good about what you have accomplished. We may not know what the last two quarters of the year will bring, but having a plan will make you better prepared for the unpredictable.
It is time to reset your 2020 goals
It can be cathartic to take stock of what has happened in the first half of the year. Assess how things have changed, what is and is not working, and your key learnings. Recognize and appreciate that you were faced with unexpected external factors and are still marching forward. Based on what you learned, reset your goals for 2020 and use the new focus areas to continue moving in the right direction.
Start with your 2020 budget and forecast
Your financials have changed from what you anticipated. You may have received a PPP loan. You may be spending money on different line items than originally planned, and the invoices may be smaller than originally forecasted. Even if you have been evaluating refreshed financials regularly, look at the trends. What will this look like for the rest of the year? Travel and trade shows will not be happening in 2020. Much of your team will continue to work remotely. Perhaps you are anticipating a growth in facilities expenses as you outfit the workplace with Plexiglas and purchase more cleaning supplies. Regardless of where the changes have occurred, the financials are different than what you mapped out in January. Remap them so you can better monitor how you are doing in the new reality.
Establish or tweak your 2020 internal initiatives
You entered the year with initiatives focused on better serving your customers and team. That has not changed. You need to maintain focus on serving your customers and team, but in a different way. You may have shifted your product offering or have completely different customers as the marketplace has changed. Your team’s needs are different, which means any initiatives to support them must meet those new needs. Identify what you need to accomplish in the second half of 2020 to support your customers and team effectively, and create a plan for progress over the next six months.
Re-SMART your goals
SMART goals refer to goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely. Attainable, relevant and timely are three components of a goal that have likely shifted dramatically in 2020 given what your business experienced. With only six months left, you need to reassess all of your goals to determine if they meet all dimensions of a SMART goal. If not, create new goals for the second half of the year.
Change is the only constant in our lives right now, so it may feel like resetting goals is not a good use of time. Learning from the first half of the year and anticipating the next six months will provide you with a strong plan to help you stay focused and moving forward. Navigating uncertainty without a compass is sure to leave you farther from your destination. Use your reset 2020 goals as your guide for making progress.
**Originally published on Puget Sound Business Journal, July 2020