Roasting turkeys and Business Planning

It’s only a few days before one of my favorite holidays.  I am dreaming of the sweet potato pies, the mac and cheese, the collard greens, the stuffing, the candied yams…

But things are a hot mess right now with my schedule.  I’m working on figuring out who is cooking and what time are we arriving?   The 9-grind is at its peak.  Little Miss and her boundless amounts of energy.  Oh vey.  And my business.

My poor poor business is getting neglected.

Hey it happens.  Things get hectic and I am trying to juggle it all.

And it’s a shame because the last 2 months of the year are good for goal setting and planning.  I know there are several goals I didn’t get to in 2012 (i.e launching my online program) and others I want to beef up (i.e updating several pages on my website).  Now is the perfect time to plan.

In the midst of the family time.

So here is my three point plan of showering love on my business AND family. 

1. Make my two special dishes and “outsource” the rest.

Yes.  First things first – I can’t do it all.  So I’m not trying to prove  that I can cook it all either.

I’m going with my faves – my sweet potato deep dish and my chocolate chip cookies (While I am not a baker , I do believe sweets are the missing 6th food group).  Rather than fuss with new recipes or even spend alot of time preparing some classics – I am going for my “no fail, no fuss” dishes and I’ll be either buying, ordering or stopping by your house for the rest.

2. Have a conversation with a family member who has a business I admire.

In the midst of all of the hugs, “my how big she’s grown”, the jockeying for the best seat to watch the game or get the first helping, there is always a family member or friend of the family that I only get to see during this time of year.  This year, I’ve got my list of questions.  I want one on one time.  And I want to know what Uncle  did to become so successful in his business and how he handled the rough points.  I also want to talk to Auntie to find out how she juggled growing her service based business while raising a family.  It’s so easy to just focus on good family conversations.  Especially when it’s a family member who knew you back “when” and still sees you as a little one.

But we often don’t discuss the realities.  The tough stories of how the business was built. We only how the story turns out.  The success. So I want to hear the steps they took, where they got support and advice and the ideas that they have for me.

Therefore, before the games start and the food and drinks flow,  I’m going to stop one or two family members and get their input.  Huge win-win for both of us.

3. Spend quiet time planning the next 12 months and bang out two mini goals over the weekend.

The biggest problem to New Year’s Resolutions – not getting any early wins.  I’m not waiting until New Years to start working on my big goals for 2013.  I’m starting out at the end of 2012 thinking about where I want to focus my energy, money, and time – and banging out some small steps before we even hit the New Year.

I think it’s easy to come up with big goals that sound amazing but hard to follow through on them for a variety of reasons.

And a goal that is too big and can’t be measured is worthless.

So rather than waiting until 1/1, I’m getting started now.  I already know I need to work on more content for my online program and I need to figure out a few tech pieces for my website. And rather than get overwhelmed with the enormity of them, I’m going to work on it and test it.  I know there will be a serious sense of accomplishment for “carving” out time .  And whatever needs to be tweaked – I can keep tweaking through the new year.

Let me know what you’ll be focusing on next week.  I wish you a happy stressless Thanksgiving holiday!