When we first begin our business, we generally have a reason for beginning the journey. You could say that this is our first goal – make money, quit my job, do what makes me happy – these are some examples I have heard from business owners. Some of these are things we want to move away from (quit my job) and others are dreams that are pulling us forward (do what we love). Either way, this generally will get us started. This is the tent camping stage of business – we don’t need much & we will roll with whatever happens (a storm and we are sleeping in our car doesn’t dampen our enthusiasm).
Ok – we have been in business for a bit, and we may have goals or possibly we are working on a set of projects or mile-markers (6-figure income, launch a new service, upgrade our product, start a podcast, etc.) that we feel are important for our business growth. At this point we have upgraded from our tent to a building – this is the foundation building stage of business. We learned a lot in the tent camping stage, and we are applying those lessons to drive growth.
At this stage of business, it is easy to get caught up in the immediate – what do I need to do today, this week, this quarter, this year. The challenge at this stage is that it is easy to be in motion, yet we aren’t giving much thought to where we are headed long-term.
In 10 years, who do we want to be? What do we want to be doing? What do we want to have?
Answering these questions gives us a long-term view of our life and business. The long-term view drives urgency at the moment. To arrive at the destination we have envisioned requires us to stay focused today. Additional benefits include.
- It stretches us to think big (we can accomplish a lot in 10 years).
- It inspires creativity and innovation.
- It moves us beyond a focus on improvement to moonshot thinking.
One final note…
Yes, things will change and that is fine. Learn to revise the plan as opportunities and challenges appear.
What life (including your business) do you aspire to be living in 10 years?
