Do you know where you’re going to?

I have the old Carpenter’s song by the same name, “Do you know where you’re going to?” ringing in my head this morning. As an entrepreneur, I have often heard the framing that you need to be deliberate about creating time to work in the business and on the business. I think these two buckets are insufficient. I’d like to propose a third which is creating time to think about the business. Now, before you say, “Lisa, I’m not an entrepreneur” and stop reading, I believe this applies to each of us. Let me break down how I think about each of these three buckets.

1. Working in the business — this is about completing the day-to-day tasks of the business. It’s attending meetings. In my case, it is about speaking, facilitating programs, and coaching.
2. Working on the business — this is about all of the backoffice efforts to keep the business running and to make it more efficient and effective. Again, for me this includes things like networking, billing, automation of processes, and building and leveraging templates.
3. Thinking about the business –this is about creating the time and space to allow myself to imagine the types of work that sit at the intersection of what I love to do, what I am good at, what leaders need, and what I can be paid for. This is a process that needs to be repeated often as each one of these dimensions’ changes over time. There are things that I used to love to do that no longer motivate me. I am a voracious learner which means that what I’m good at continues to evolve. And, what the leaders need and find value in shifts as well. This effort to set aside time to think about the business allows me to set the direction of the business in order to focus on that handful of ideas worth pursuing at this time.

Once I am clear about where I am headed, I am better able to determine the best use of my time when it comes to working in and on the business. This clarity then influences where I network, and with whom. It influences which programs I invest in promoting and which I backburner. It influences where I choose to speak and on which topics.

For those of you who do not see yourselves as entrepreneurs, I would suggest to you that you are the entrepreneur of your life. For many of you, you are in the early stages of beginning to frame your goals for 2025. Use this opportunity to take a step back and ask yourself, “Do I know where I am going to? What is the direction that I want to set for myself? And, how might I use this goal setting process to begin building momentum in that direction?”