Setting Annual Goals That Actually Last (Even When Real Life Gets in the Way)
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.
Reflecting on the past year with intention
Before you think about what's next, look back at what's just been. Not with judgment, but with curiosity.
Start with the goals you actually achieved. What made those possible? Often it's not just effort. Perhaps the timing was right, or you had support you didn't acknowledge at the time, or the goal aligned with something you genuinely cared about. Maybe external circumstances created momentum you couldn't have planned for. Write down what was present when things worked. Those conditions are clues.
Now consider the goals that stalled or quietly disappeared. What was missing? Sometimes it's capacity - you simply didn't have the time or energy. Sometimes the goal was imposed from outside: something you thought you should want rather than something you did want. Sometimes the goal was vague, unmeasurable, or disconnected from the daily reality of your work. And sometimes, honestly, you just changed your mind.
That last point matters more than we usually admit. Letting go of goals isn't failure. It's often a sign of maturity and self-awareness. Perhaps you pursued something because it seemed like the logical next step, only to discover it didn't suit you. Perhaps circumstances shifted and the goal became irrelevant. Perhaps you learned something that made the original intention obsolete. Founders who've been in business a few years know this: the ability to release what no longer serves you is as important as the ability to commit.
Admitting that you just plain forgot a goal is also important, if painful. What if you set the same goal again and forgot again? This highlights the need for accountability for your goals.
What you're looking for in this reflection isn't a performance review. You're looking for patterns. What energised you? What drained you? What worked? What didn't? The answers to these questions shape what comes next.
Setting meaningful intentions for the year ahead
When it comes to setting goals for the new year, the problem isn't usually a lack of ambition. It's the opposite: too many goals, too much optimism about available time, too little thought about whether these goals will still matter in six months.
One approach that helps is to use RAISE goals - a framework designed specifically for founders who need goals that hold up under pressure.
RAISE goals are:
Results-focused. Not activities, not tasks, but outcomes. "Launch a podcast" isn't a RAISE goal. "Attract 500 engaged listeners who fit my ideal client profile" is. The difference matters because results keep you honest about what success actually looks like.
Annual. These aren't quarterly sprints or monthly targets. They're the big shifts you want to have achieved by this time next year. Annual goals give you permission to pace yourself, to let things develop, to survive the inevitable disruptions without abandoning the intention.
Inspirational. This doesn't mean grandiose. It means the goal pulls you forward on a difficult Tuesday in July when everything else is clamouring for attention. If a goal doesn't spark something when you read it, it won't sustain you.
Specific. Vague goals create vague action. "Grow the business" means nothing. "Increase revenue by 25% through three new retained clients" is something you can plan around, measure, and know when you've done it.
Energising. This is the test most goals fail. If thinking about the goal makes you feel heavy or obligated, it's the wrong goal. RAISE goals should create energy, not consume it. They should feel like something you're moving towards, not something you're dragging yourself through.
The value of RAISE goals isn't just in how they're structured. It's in how they function throughout the year. When opportunities arise - as they always do - RAISE goals become your filter. Does this align with where I'm heading? Does it support the results I've committed to? If not, it's easier to decline, even when the opportunity looks appealing.
When distractions multiply - as they always do - RAISE goals remind you what matters. You can't do everything. You can do a few things that move you meaningfully forward. RAISE goals clarify what those few things are.
Most founders I work with start each year with too many goals, then gradually winnow them down to three or four that genuinely matter. If you're struggling to narrow your list, ask yourself: if I only achieved one thing this year, what would make the biggest difference? Start there.
Remember that you can talk about these goals and intentions with your business coach or mentor. I will help you identify what’s most important for you in the coming year.
Designing the environment that supports goals all year
Goals don't exist in isolation. They sit inside a context: your values, your ways of working, your capacity, your environment. If that context doesn't support the goal, willpower won't bridge the gap for long.
This is where most goal-setting falls short. We declare what we want to achieve, then assume motivation will carry us through. It won't. What carries you through is an environment deliberately designed to keep goals visible, relevant, and supported.
Three elements help create that environment: values, principles, and breakthrough themes.
Values as decision-making filters
Values aren't aspirational statements. They're the non-negotiables that guide choices when options conflict. If you value autonomy, you'll make different decisions about client work than if you value collaboration. If you value simplicity, you'll resist complexity in ways someone who values innovation might not.
When you're clear about your values, decisions get easier. A project might be lucrative, but if it violates a core value - say, your commitment to work-life integration - it's not worth pursuing. An opportunity might look exciting, but if it pulls you away from what you've said matters most, you can decline without regret.
Values aren't static. They evolve as you and your business mature. What mattered three years ago might not matter now. Reviewing your values annually ensures they still reflect who you are and how you want to work.
Principles as ways of working when things get difficult
Principles are practical. They're the rules you follow when everything is hard and you need a way through.
For example: "I finish what I start before beginning something new" is a principle. So is "I protect my energy by saying no to most things." So is "I ask for help before I'm desperate."
Principles aren't moral absolutes. They're personal guidelines that keep you functioning when pressure mounts. They prevent the kind of reactive decision-making that derails goals. They create consistency in how you operate, which builds trust - with clients, with colleagues, with yourself.
Most founders develop principles through experience, often through mistakes. The project you took on when you were already overextended. The opportunity you said yes to that pulled you completely off course. The commitment you made without thinking it through. Each of those moments teaches you something about what you need to do differently.
Write your principles down. When you're in the middle of something difficult, you won't always remember them. But if they're visible - literally written somewhere you can see - they help you course-correct faster.
Breakthrough themes as the deeper shifts required this year
Goals describe what you'll achieve. Breakthrough themes describe how you'll need to grow to get there.
Perhaps your goal is to sign three significant new clients, but you know that to do it you'll need to become more comfortable with visibility. That's a breakthrough theme: increasing your presence in spaces where ideal clients gather, even when it feels uncomfortable.
Perhaps your goal is to create a new revenue stream, but you know you'll need to delegate more effectively to free up the time and headspace. That's a breakthrough theme: moving from doing everything yourself to trusting others with important work.
Breakthrough themes name the internal shift or external capability you're developing this year. They acknowledge that achieving the goal isn't just about effort. It's about becoming someone slightly different - someone capable of doing things you haven't quite managed yet.
Bringing it together: The Curve
These elements - reflection, goals, values, principles, themes - work best when they're not scattered across different notebooks or files, but visible together in one place. That's the thinking behind The Curve, a one-page planning framework that holds everything you need for the year.
The Curve isn't complicated. It's a single page divided into sections: your RAISE goals at the centre, your values and principles nearby, your breakthrough theme identified clearly, space for quarterly milestones and monthly check-ins. Everything in view. Everything connected.
What makes it useful isn't its structure, but what it enables. You can see, at a glance, whether your daily decisions align with your annual intentions. You can check in monthly without needing to recreate your thinking from scratch. You can adjust when circumstances change - and they will change - without losing sight of what matters.
It's designed for founders who don't have time for elaborate planning systems but need something more substantial than a to-do list. It keeps you accountable without requiring you to be perfect.
A year that survives real life
Good goal-setting isn't about prediction. You can't know in January what September will demand. You can't foresee the client who'll need more support than expected, the opportunity that arrives from nowhere, the personal situation that temporarily shifts everything as happened to me this year.
“Good goal-setting isn’t about perfect execution. It’s about designing a year that can bend without breaking. ”
What you can do is create a framework that bends without breaking. RAISE goals that inspire even when they're inconvenient. Values that guide decisions when options multiply. Principles that keep you steady when pressure mounts. A breakthrough theme that reminds you what growth looks like this year.
And you can build in space for reflection - not just in December, but every month - so you're adjusting as you go rather than discovering in December that you spent the year pursuing goals that stopped mattering in March.
Or better still accountability with a coach who will hold your feet to the flames when it feels uncomfortable, help you anticipate and navigate the obstables that the year will definitely throw at you.
The founders who maintain momentum throughout the year aren't more disciplined or less busy than you. They've simply designed a year that accounts for reality. They've set goals that energise rather than exhaust, created an environment that supports those goals, given themselves permission to adapt when life demands it and engaged with a coach who helps them be the person they want to be..
That's what this year can be: not perfect, but purposeful. Not without disruption, but with direction. Not a year where you achieved every goal, but a year where the goals you set were worth pursuing, and you built the conditions that made progress possible.
That's enough.