How to Set Goals for the Next Year, Three Years, and 10 Years

By Next Level Pod on January 12th, 2022 in Uncategorized

Our goal here at Next Level Legal is to always be authentic. We want to share our struggles as business owners because we know many of you will relate. We aren’t perfect and are still working on implementing many of the things we talk about in our podcast episodes.

Last week’s episode was no exception. We talked about goal planning for the next year.

What we want to harp on is that, just as with everything else in entrepreneurship, imperfect goal planning is better than none at all. Don’t let perfect become the enemy of good. Of course, we’d all love to have the perfect plan but it’s more important that we just get started.

Today, we’ll teach you how. We will discuss the three steps to goal planning for the next year. We’ll break it down into where we are now, where we want to be, and what it will take to get there. 

Plan Further Ahead

Many law firm owners want to jump in and say, “Where do I want to be by the end of the year?” However, you really need to think about where you want to be in the further future. Many business owners say that the biggest shift they made that led to a lot of growth was sketching out where they wanted to be not just by the end of the year but in five to 10 years.

Set aside an hour with a pad of paper and ask yourself some questions. These aren’t necessarily the questions you’d ask yourself in your yearly goal-setting sessions. You want to be thinking further into the future. 

It’s okay to think selfishly here too. Ask yourself what salary and lifestyle you want out of owning your firm? Think about your take-home pay. Think about the number your business needs to have in profit to be able to afford what you need. 

Additionally, think about what you want your firm to be known for. What are you going to strive to do better than anyone else? How will you serve and provide value to your target clients better than anyone else? 

Three-Year Vision

On top of your big picture planning, you need to spend some time on your three-year vision. You want this to be detailed enough that your team can close their eyes and picture everything. 

Think about how many clients you want and what they’ll say about working with your firm. Think about where you are physically working. Think about the unique, fun things your firm does for your team members and community.

Where Are You Now?

The next step is assessing where you are at now. This is a necessary first step to take before you can figure out how to get where you want to go. Schedule an hour or two in your calendar to jot down the questions you have about where you are. 

Yearly Planning

Finally, all of this needs to be broken down into yearly planning. Once you’ve spent time on the other steps, this becomes the easiest part. You have your goal of where you want to be in three years. Now, you need to break that down into individual years. 

This is what it means to work backward. You figure out what needs to happen this year to be on the right path for your three-year vision. While it might take a little extra time to plan all of this, your life will go a lot more smoothly over the next year because it’s all planned out. 

If you want to learn more about goal planning, check out Episode 029: Goal Planning for This Year.