My friends and I were discussing about new year's resolutions and we all ended up chiding each other how we would fail outright. Well that for one is the best attitude to failure.Creating life goals is no different from corporate strategic planning. You have to have a vision, you need to articulate your mission or purpose or in other cases your motivation. Then you set your goals to doable bite size pieces. And I mean bite size so you don't choke.
The reason we fail in reaching our goals is because we often just make them for the sake of having one but we do not commit ourselves to them. And yes commitment my dear is a conscious and deliberate pursuit of those small objectives so you that your actions are directed to hitting your targets.
It may be painful just as exercising is strenuous to those who have marked losing weight or staying healthy as their goal. The daily battle of discipline to wake up early to be able to go to the gym or to eat the slimy and gooey healthy concoctions so you keep in shape and are fit, is akin to the determination to cut on unnecessary costs that will lead the company to a better financial position.
In the process of our deliberations, most of us saw how in our list financial freedom was among the top grocers. Eight out of ten listed the desire to be debt-free while the two others wrote their desire to save.
Now at the risk of being preachy, this brings us to examine our lifestyles. How do we spend our money? How many of us clutter our homes with unused appliances or gadgets?
In our companies, how often do we pursue the state-of-the-art but hard to maintain equipment, simply because we don't want competition to say we are techno-fossils? How about our vehicles or even people? Have we maxed them out before we change them?We have to remember that discarding due to style and not function will add to the glut of gray and blue garbage which in the long term may get Mother Earth a-collecting on the environment.
On the other hand, have we updated high maintenance dinosaurs that continue to occupy prime spaces in our workplace?Extremely old and passé equipment that need to be replaced; people who no longer work properly but who retire in their attitudes and are unproductive?
Again life goals and corporate goals are alike. It would take serious small steps to reach them. But if done this hot pursuit would be a worthwhile trip.
Happy new year!