Virtually everyone who leads a financial planning firm or practice will admit to engaging in an annual business planning process, and, unfortunately, the percentage who compare their actual results to those planned for during this period is far lower in my experience. But at least they thought about it and scoped it out, right? Fair enough ... but, in most cases, clearly not far enough.
Among the things we’ve learned from the research on goal achievement is that the more we break down annual goals into monthly and/or weekly ones, the greater the likelihood that they’ll be achieved. This not only means breaking them down into smaller components of time, but also engaging in an interim review on a periodic basis. After all, what good is it to have annual goals against which you compare your performance only once a year?
So as we approach the end of this year and begin thinking about our plans for the next, it behooves us to commit to dividing our annual goals into quarterly or, preferably, monthly ones as well as to reviewing our progress at these intervals. In this way, we cannot only stay focused on our objectives, but conceive of and act on them in a way that both keeps us more conscious of them in our daily and weekly behavior as well as increases our likelihood of achieving them over time.
Further, periodic assessment enables us to make course corrections in real time. Consider this: let’s say that you discover that your level of activity for the successful accomplishment of a particular task is only half of what it needs to be. If you only assess your performance annually, you’ll miss your target. But, if you engage in a review either quarterly or on a monthly basis, you’re far more likely to discover the problem and have sufficient time to correct it to enable the achievement of your goal by year’s end.
To take this a step further, consider this insight from the discipline of time investment: if you study the allocation of your time on an intraday basis, you’re far more likely to invest it in closer alignment with the plan to achieve your goals. So, I also urge you to consider breaking your annual goals down into weekly measures against which you’ll inspect your performance, if not daily ones.
(The suggestion of weekly versus daily practice reflects that many professionals don’t perform each of their tasks every day and often create blocks of time within their calendars to focus on certain specific activities at particular times. Therefore, since their days don’t contain the same tasks, measuring their performance on a weekly basis is likely more effective. This being said, however, if you’ve chosen to structure your time in such a way that you do every major task every day, then daily activity goals may not only be appropriate but especially helpful.)
So, to maximize your success at continually affecting positive change—which is what the planning process, either for a business or on a personal level, is all about—commit to annual business planning and, at a minimum, quarterly performance assessment. Then, commit to monthly (or weekly) individual/personal activity planning and weekly (or daily) self-assessment. Not only will you position yourself to be far more likely to achieve your goals, but, through the process of interim assessment, you’ll likely discover opportunities (to plan to) to exceed them. And consistently putting yourself and your organization in the position to win more and to win bigger is one of the very best decisions you can ever make. It all starts with a commitment to planning and to periodic performance assessment, a commitment that you can make today.
Additionally, how much thought—or planning—do you give to your physical (et. al.) health? If the answer is a good deal or even a lot, congratulations! If your answer is in somehow less than this, here, too, is an opportunity to benefit from the discipline of planning.
It turns out that I’ve actually been far more disciplined of late with respect to my self-care: I’m eating better, working out regularly (i.e., four to five times per week), losing weight (i.e., 8% of my body mass in the past two months) and generally taking better care of myself … so it’s perhaps a tad ironic that I’m experiencing a bout of physical pain at the moment. It’s actually the recurrence of a condition that I experienced last year when I also was in the process of caring for myself in a better way, but not to the same extent as I am now. So I’ve been here before.
Which means that I know at least one solution to my current challenge. Yet it behooves me to use this opportunity to identify others, especially given how different the external circumstances are today, particularly the renewed flourishing of COVID-19. So that’s what I’m doing: I’m consulting experts and researching alternatives to my previous course of action within a defined timeframe, and, should I not uncover strategies worth pursuing in greater depth, I’ll default to what worked last time. The point is that while I’m engaging in a process of planning, I’m also positioning myself to learn more in a way that could potentially enable even greater success (at self-care) in the future.
It turns out that this planning discipline is helpful in every aspect of life, both personally and professionally. And even though, technically speaking, I’ve known this for decades, which means that I’ve had an intellectual appreciation for it—I’ve only recently begun to embrace this insight fully—at both a technical and an emotional level as well.
What opportunities to contribute more impactfully and live more fully could this holistic commitment to planning offer you?
I truly do hope that you’ll engage fully with this question, because, as you do, you’ll really be planning to win, both in your career and, most importantly, in life.