Reflections and Resolutions: Business Goals in 2024

The beginning, or the end of the year is generally a time when we make time to take stock and reflect on the year gone by and make plans for the year to come. While we may do this for our personal lives, it's equally important for us to do this for our businesses as well. Some questions we may ask ourselves are:

• What were we able to accomplish last year?
• What are we proud of?
• What did we try that went well over the last year?
• What did we try, that didn’t work, or didn't work the way we anticipated?
• What do we want to work on and be better at for next year?

I’m not a fan of resolutions, but I do see value in setting goals and then making plans.

Let's take a moment to clarify the difference between a resolution and a plan. A resolution is defined as "a definite decision to do or not to do something". A goal, in contrast, is "something you hope to achieve" and because hoping can only get you so far, goals need to be coupled with a plan, which is defined as "a set of things to do in order to achieve something". The word "definite" in the resolution definition leaves little room for adaptation and my experience has been that resolutions feel immovable and unchangeable. You steel yourself at the beginning of a year, you are resolute (def. strong and determined) in achieving it even if you made a poor decision in choosing your resolutions and worse you feel bad if you fail at your resolution. I believe that goals on the other hand and the plans you set out to accomplish them, mentally, are more malleable. Especially if we believe the idiom that "no plan survives first contact with the enemy". If we believe this then we set out to accomplish our goals with the inherent understanding that our plans to achieve them will likely change and in some cases the goals themselves may require revision. Another way to think of it is this: a resolution is the pursuit of perfection while a goal and plan are the pursuit of improvement.

On the road to improvement here are some suggestions you may find useful:

• Reflect on your own business and on the wider landscape of your industry. Make some notes and consider how the wider environment can and will affect your organization throughout the upcoming year.
• Consider goals where you stop doing something. Acknowledge that there are certain things it may be time to let go of. Habits we have or initiatives, that we tried, that we realize no longer serve us.

The last thing I'd like to mention, briefly, is focus. Everything I've discussed so far ultimately revolves around your focus. What are you personally focused on and/or what is your business focused on? The new year is one of many opportunities to refocus if necessary. Refocusing means looking at the essence of you or your business and ensuring you understand what that essence is. Maybe it is what it has always been, or maybe it's changed over the past year. It helps, I think, to define it. Write it down so that every goal we set and plan we make is in service of our core focus.

I think that with focus, some time spent in reflection on the last year, setting goals, and making plans to achieve them we can make this year more fulfilling and successful and help us drive what I think is most important: improvement.

Happy New Year.

At Invizio we understand that your computers, networks, and devices are tools you use to do your best work. It’s important to make sure that they work in a safe, reliable manner. We help our clients optimize their efficiency so they can serve their core focus. In addition to support for your users and management of your network and devices, our fully, ManagedIT service includes ongoing consultation that can help you figure it all out.

Have a question (or two)? Reach out to our team at solutions@invizio.com