I was recently invited by SAIBA to deliver the international keynote at their 2-day ‘Planning For 2019’ boot-camp in South Africa.
It was a great event full of proactive, open-minded practice owners who are passionate about changing their businesses (and their clients’ businesses) for the better.
On day 2 of the conference, I was also asked to run a half-day strategic planning session with over 200 delegates.
This is the long-term roadmap I do with all of my clients when they join my mastermind & coaching programme to help give them clarity on where they want to get to and, most importantly, how they’re going to get there.
Now the crucial part of this (which lots of other people seem to miss out) is starting with where you want to get to – not just in business, but in your personal life too…
What do you REALLY want in your personal life?
I bet it’s been a while since you genuinely considered this question…
Asking yourself this question is absolutely key, but it’s something that most people tend to miss out on. They tend to focus instead on what they want their business to achieve.
Which is fine, but there’s no point constantly working hard building a business if you’re not achieving what you want to personally as a result.
Everyone wants to have lived a life that they can look back on and think ‘WOW, that was really amazing.’
So, in order to achieve this, it’s important to consider what you really want (and what you don’t want) from your personal life.
Ask yourself, if you had a magic wand, what would you want for your personal life and how would it look?
For example, if your personal goals are around reducing the amount of time you spend working in your business so that you can spend 3 months of the year travelling with your family and spending a day a week playing golf, then there’s not much point in building a profitable business that requires you to work 60+ hours per week.
If that’s what you want for your personal life, then you need to work towards reducing the reliance on yourself and your working hours, whilst still keeping the practice profitable and growing.
Here are some things you should ask yourself when considering this:
- How much time do you want to spend working in your practice?
- Where do you want to work? (ie. In the office/remotely/from home etc)
- Do you want more time for your friends and family?
- What hobbies/sports might you want to start or do more of if you had more time?
- Are there any additional business/investment interests that you’d like to pursue?
From here you can create a picture of how your ideal personal life would look.
Then, once you’re absolutely clear on what it is that you want from your personal life, you can start working towards the next step which is…
What kind of practice do you need to build to live the personal life you really want?
Once you have your ideal lifestyle figured out, you need to build your practice in order to support it.
When you approach it from this angle, you’ll find you start prioritising the most important things and stop wasting time on things that won’t help you reach your goals.
If you want a practice that allows you to work 1-2 days per week, take multiple holidays per year and be able to spend precious time with your loved ones, YOU need to build it to allow this.
You need to create systems and models and put them in place in order to allow you this freedom.
Sure, you can grow your practice to £X Million but if the end result is one where you’re working 60+ hours a week to sustain it, then it’s not aligned with what you want personally.
So, ask yourself what systems, people and structures do you need to put in place to get to that ideal personal lifestyle picture you’ve created?
- Do you need more staff?
- Do you need to delegate more?
- Do you need better systems and automation?
I bet the answer to all three is YES!
Personal goals always trump business goals and that’s why they should come first.
After all, nobody looks back at the end of their life and thinks about all the hours they spent at their desk answering emails and tackling paperwork.
Creating your plan for 2019
Right now is the perfect time of year to be thinking about your perfect lifestyle and the changes you need to make in your practice to support this.
You can end 2018 and begin 2019 knowing exactly what you want from your personal life and how you’re going to build a business that allows this.
Sure, if you want to transition from working 60+ hours per week in your practice to 2 days a week, it might not be possible to do this in just 12 months.
But, if you begin to put systems and practices in place that help you work towards it, you’ll be much closer to that ideal lifestyle you pictured by this time next year.
The time will pass anyway, so make sure you’re using it to work towards your goals.
If you’d like to talk to me directly about what your goals are and, more importantly, how you can build your practice in a way that helps you meet those goals, why not book yourself in for a call here? Every day I work with practice owners from all over the world helping their dreams become a reality, I’d love to help you do the same.