Create A One Year Plan For Your Business

Since 2007, I’ve been doing something simple yet powerful at the end of each year. I believe this task has improved my way of life and has helped pave the way for my future endeavors. I’m talking about creating a one year plan. I’m constantly thinking of how I can improve, and defining those thoughts on paper gives me something to focus on. I begin by writing everything down I can think of. Then I start refining my yearly goals. The more specific you can make your goals, and the more details you can envision, the more likely your goals are to occur.

There’s something about writing your goals down that tells the Universe that you mean business—that you’re dead serious about bringing these goals to reality. You still have to work your ass off to make those things happen, but defining specific goals, and setting a time limit for accomplishing them puts intention and urgency into your actions. A year is a good time frame for developing plans, testing out strategies, and doing the necessary work. A one year plan also fits nicely into a longer term plan with more broadly defined goals, and can also be broken into smaller sections, like one, three, or six months.

How did I do for 2013?

I set certain goals for revenue, page views, skills improvement, notoriety, and other accomplishments. I achieved about 85% of what I set forth to do in last year’s plan. I realize that I’ve been too conservative in setting goals. Instead of setting goals according to what I believe I can accomplish in a year, I need to be more ambitious, and set my goals even higher than I expect to achieve. Putting goals in writing and always staying positive are very powerful actions.

My Process For Creating a One Year Plan

All throughout the year, I’m changing how I think, by reading books, listening to people who inspire me, and looking for patterns of what makes success manifest. Basically, I’m always looking for ways to hack Life. Based on where I’m at, where I’d like to be, where I believe I can get to, and other factors, I jot down every thing I’d like to achieve in my business life. I usually end up with about two or three pages of coherent, well-defined ideas.

Now if were to just throw this list in a drawer for a year, chances are nothing I wrote down is going to come to fruition. If I’m not passionate about everything on my list, those things aren’t going to manifest during the year. Sometimes, the goals I write down actually take a few years to occur, but they need to have a beginning—defining my intentions and my desire to see them realized. I like to post my list on a wall in my office, so I can see it from time to time, to remind me of the plans that I’ve set in motion.

Will This Work For You?

It’s definitely not going to hurt you to try. I believe that words have power, and writing things down and then following through with action helps bring those words into reality. Another thing I implement when I create a one year plan is define metrics such as revenue, profits, views, shares, subscribers, or customers with as many specific numbers as possible.

If anyone else has had success with writing long-term goals down and later realizing them, let me know!

Author: John Locke

SEO consultant for manufacturing and industrial companies.