Setting Annual Business Goals That Last Beyond January

Most of us have sat in early January with a notebook or spreadsheet, full of resolve about what this year will bring. We set targets, declare intentions, perhaps even share them publicly. Then February arrives, then March, and those goals slip quietly beneath the surface of everyday demands. By summer, we’ve forgotten half of them. By December, we’re doing it all over again.

If you’re running an established business - one with clients, revenue, obligations - you already know that goals fail not because you lack discipline, but because they were never designed to survive contact with real life. The year throws complexity at you: client crises, family needs, opportunities you didn’t anticipate, energy that ebbs and flows. Good goal-setting isn’t about perfect execution. It’s about designing a year that can bend without breaking.

This article walks through three phases that help goals stay relevant all year: reflecting on what’s just passed, setting intentions that energise rather than exhaust, and building an environment that keeps you on course when everything else is pulling you sideways.