City Centre Mirror

Have the business goals you’d set for 2012 stayed present in your mind, or have they drifted away like new year’s resolutions in the cold days of January?

Midyear is a great time to bring these goals back into view and take stock. Do you look forward to checking in on your business goals? Or does the thought of a midyear review set your head throbbing?

It was the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland who said: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Reviewing is imperative to your business progress but can also become a dreaded activity.

Consider breaking your midyear review into the following three steps:

Revisit

Be brave. Whether you’ve documented actual business and financial goals for 2012 or simply thought about what you’d like to accomplish throughout this year, you – and your business – will benefit from doing a check in.

Often, what keeps us from revisiting the progress of our business is our own self-judgment. We may think that what we don’t know can’t hurt us.

But unless we know where we are, how can we get where we want to go?

What were the top three business goals you set for 2012? Did you want to purchase a new piece of equipment? Perhaps you want to finally land a client you’ve been courting for some time. Were you planning to go into a new market, industry or geographical territory?

Revise

Reminding yourself of the goals you’ve set allows you the opportunity to look at the progress of your business goals so far this year. After all, it is the opportunity to review and address any external factors that have affected your goals six months into the year.

Examples of external factors would be the availability of production materials, economic conditions, changes in legislation or redirection of client intentions.

It is also possible to be influenced by internal conditions such as your own confidence, skill level, business knowledge and personal support system. The combination of these factors will have an impact on your business that can be either positive or negative.

Reset

For small business owners, both external and internal issues can feel like they are out of your hands, but they impact the goals you’ve set.

In looking at external factors, you will have to review your options for going forward.

Be honest with yourself. What has gone well and what needs revisiting? If you had the benefit of today’s knowledge at the beginning of the year, what would you do differently?

When considering internal factors, what is within your ability to change, in order to have an improved experience for the remainder of the year?

Having a process to follow can result in feeling less fearful of reviewing the midyear business goals.

Allowing yourself the opportunity to “auto-correct” or reset your goals throughout the year – and at least in a midyear review – can result in feeling more in control of your business and more aligned with your goals all year long.

Sonia Byrne is a business and life coach. She can be reached at www.soniabyrne.com