It’s goal-setting season, and we’re already charging ahead with hopes and plans for 2025. This is great because goals are an important way to challenge yourself and your team to change and improve. Even if you miss your targets, there are lessons to be learned and refinements to be made.
Here’s an irony of goals and planning: leaders and business owners often form a mental image of the “perfect” business. Year after year, goals are set and worked toward in pursuit of perfection. But perfection is unachievable, right?
Progress, Not Perfection
Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach and recent co-author of The Gap and the Gain, pioneered a construct called The Gap and layered in The Gain more recently. The Gap is the difference between your future ideal practice and the practice you have today. Focusing on The Gap exclusively results in frustration and discouragement. Looking forward, there will always be improvements to make.
Great leaders make a habit of periodically stopping, looking backward, and reflecting on the progress they made over the past year. This is The Gain. Celebrating success builds confidence, gratitude, and motivation.
To scaffold this a bit, here are some suggestions on how to celebrate your practice’s success:
- Be specific and concrete. Instead of saying “We’re so much better,” provide examples of how your practice has improved. For instance, “Our capture rate has improved,” “Our online review scores are up,” or “We successfully added a new lane.” Give tangible and detailed examples of what’s better and how it benefits your team and your patients.
- Use numbers. Using data gives weight and credibility to claims. Don’t overdo it, but using numbers lets your team know that you’re paying attention and have a real understanding of what your team is doing.
- Use names with care. It’s great to celebrate individuals’ achievements publicly but exercise caution when doing so. Like your toddler’s birthday invites, sometimes it’s best to either include everyone or name no one. Often, certain roles receive more visible acknowledgment, potentially overlooking essential but less noteworthy roles.
- Turn losses into lessons. Being honest with yourself and your team means owning the fact that you missed some goals. Instead of dwelling on these misses, take ownership of your role in them and then focus on the lessons learned and how last year’s lessons are turning into this year’s successes.
A Culture of Growth
Setting goals and measuring progress are fundamental to creating a culture of accountability, competence, and growth in your office. When done well, goals help focus your team’s attention on the most important priorities and shape plans for improvement.
Taking the time to celebrate success and learn from failure are key steps to reinforcing a growth mindset. As you begin implementing your 2025 goals and plans, be sure you’ve also taken the time to recognize last year’s progress, using it as a motivational springboard to chase this year’s results. Do you need a clearer view of your financials to make smarter business decisions in 2025? Reach out to us at Books & Benchmarks! We’re here to assist you with our expert optometry bookkeeping services and financial benchmarks for optometrists.