Every business leader knows that goal setting is important, but few know how to set goals. After all, a goal is as only as good as it is specific, and setting specific, achievable goals means strategizing on a level that does not just account for benchmarks and bottom lines, but personal well-being, too.
If your goals do not distinguish between different business modalities—marketing, business development, human resources, and finance, for instance—and do not, above all, take your personal needs into consideration, they are no better than throwing spaghetti at the wall.
To get started on setting productive, sustainable goals, begin by asking the following four questions.
1. What is frustrating you most right now?
Frustration is blinding and a major drain on your energy. Identifying acute frustrations allows you to both pinpoint those areas of your business that need urgent attention and gain the sort of powerful momentum required of top-tier success. When you start solving problems that weigh you down, you unshackle energy that makes further problem-solving seem less like work and more like liberation. In turn, you gain control of your business where before it maintained control over you.
2. What do you want to have happen this year?
Too many attorneys and legal consultants answer this question with an all-too-vague and unhelpful one-word answer: growth. This, alone, won’t get you far, as growth only comes when all the moving parts of your firm are working in synergy. A productive answer to this question, then, means asking it of each individual aspect. Further, it means ensuring your answers work to complement, not compete with, one another.
3. What has worked in the past, and what has not?
Everyone knows Einstein’s famous definition of insanity as, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Nonetheless, where goals are concerned, this is something seen time and time again in the business world. Just as important as setting strategic, specific goals is evaluating past goals and determining why they did or did not work.
4. What would it take for you to double your happiness during the next year?
This is the most important question on this list, and yet it is rarely asked…and even more rarely answered. Indeed, when faced with the question of personal happiness, attorneys often react as if they’ve forgotten the word’s meaning. Happiness is not about boosting gross income or expanding your practice, it’s about you. If you do not center personal well-being in your goal-setting, pretty quickly goal-setting itself will become a source of stress, and as soon as that happens, you might as well ready your résumé.
Curious to learn more about the crucial role of strategic goals in law firm business development? Do not hesitate to book a call with me, founder or Hiring & Empowering Solutions and best-selling author Molly McGrath, and get started today on making your business work for you.
