The fourth quarter has just started and the end of the year will be here before you know it. If you haven’t revisited your goals recently, here are two reasons why now is the time.
First, this is a good opportunity to see how you are doing against the goals – are you hitting the milestones you need to achieve to reach or exceed your targets? You still have three months to ramp up sales efforts, adjust processes, hire new talent, develop a new product or service, expand into new markets or geographic areas, or take similar actions.
If you’ve already crushed your goals, congratulations. Now, set a new goal for the end of the year, focus on your stretch goal or work on a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).
The second reason to revisit goals now is to confirm whether they are realistic. Goals are aspirational, and there are times when no amount of hard work and willpower will bring them to fruition. Any number of things can happen – think about how COVID changed the world in 2020. It would have been unfair to hold yourself or employees accountable for goals set at the start of 2020.
Many reasons can necessitate adjusting goals, from staffing or budget constraints to new opportunities that took time away from working on original targets. There is nothing wrong with revisiting the reason for a goal and making changes, even with 75 percent of the year complete.
There is a lot wrong with clinging to an unrealistic goal and making yourself and others miserable in pursuit of something that is no longer practical. That doesn’t mean you don’t try; simply that you adjust expectations to ensure you don’t burn through cash or burn out employees and strategic partners.
As the cliche says, you can’t change the wind, but you can adjust your sails.