Year End Strategy Planning Do's and Do NOT's! Jake Dixon

Whenever December rolls around I am always obsessing with future casting of what I want to accomplish for next year and this year is no different---typically  I will look back at my last 12 months and take note of what worked well for me and what things didn't go so well and then course correct.  Hopefully, I can see what I need to double down on and what I need to let go.

Sometimes I double down on losses----If I had bad year trading stocks I will double up my positions and dig in to not only reverse my losses but, turn them into blockbuster returns---I always end up losing more because I start making bad bets.

Sometimes I find something that has worked well and think that I am so good at that nowadays that I don't have to focus on it any more-----I always end up replacing a good habit with a bad habit,

I can do an hour on goal setting but, I'm not-however I do want to take a few minutes and talk with you about the framework that I have found to be most effective to not only set goals but, to actually achieve them.  The first 2 things that I consider is what pillars in my life do I really want to change?  For me---in some years financial is my primary goal and to be honest, that has been my primary driver for most of my life but, in those years that I only focused on my financial pillar-----I started to see an eroding in other areas of my life----for me invariably---as my financial pillar grew my health pillar started to lose height.  I spent more time engaged in work I don't have time to work out or eat right.   There is always a push-pull in life---because we all have the same amount of time we all experience a pushing forward and simultaneous pulling back.  I am not going to cover how to hack the system and how leverage can change all this----I just want to provide you my framework to design my life.

 

I focus on 5 pillars---they are  in no particular order:

Financial

Health

Relationships

Education’Growth

Spiritual

 

Those are the 5 areas that I focus on and I think most people will agree that reasonable buckets to focus on-----the problem engineering your life is not just knowing that these are the 5 buckets that you should focus on but, more of a question of how to focus on them.  It doesn't work if you just start listing your dreams.  I want to make a million dollars or worse I want to achieve financial freedom.  My health goal is to be at 10% bodyfat or whatever your ideal is.

 

Bullet pointing your life's ideals is great but, don't confuse that with actual year-end planning.

I keep it super simple----I look at each pillar in turn and rank them from 1 disaster to 10 which is off the charts.

If for example, my financial pillar is at a 7 and my health is at a 2 I probably need to really consider rebalancing how I spend my time.   If my relationships with my friends and family is a 3 my education/growth is an 8---- you probably need to think about going to some relationship seminars.  I'm bringing this up because I went through most of my life thinking that my financial pillar will solve all the others----if my finances we a 9 and my health a 2--no problem---I hire the best people and buy the best training and voila---im fixed.  That tactic works for a time but, thats not something that a person can sustain for more than a few years.  Mainly because the peaks get higher and the troughs get lower.  Its a much better strategy to focus on solid 7’s and no----you can't average them.  You must look at them pillar by pillar.

 

The last thing I am going to say about this is that when you look at these pillars you should only focus on a maximum of adding 3 things to each pillar and subtracting 3 things from each pillar.

 

The methodology around limiting the number of changes you make in each pillar is that it provides a backstop around someone trying to change everything all at once.  The process of improvement is largely incremental----there are times in life where we can achieve move the ball way down the field----but, those outlier events can rarely be engineered year over year---

 

You should build your business much like a stock or startup portfolio---you want to spend the bulk of your time just trying to get base hits------although; we all need to have a few moonshots in play.  

 

Im not going to get into the specifics of what that looks like during this episode although I will leave you with this-----planning for this year is going to be very different in years past for the reason that we have some very large structural things right in front of us---covid, an administration change, mistrust in our institutions and a very uncertain economy.  These are times where fortunes are made and lost--the people and teams that win are the ones that stayed flexible enough to adapt to fast-moving change but, built-in enough structure to keep getting on base.

If you need some help crafting your next year's strategy or just want someone to add finishing touches-----give me a call I would love to see if I can help.  My direct line is 6193010823