I love a New Year! I love fresh beginnings; a chance to start over. I like to look back at business and personal goals that I had this past year and think strategically about how to better achieve new ones in the coming year.
It’s hard sometimes to think strategically, tactics, the day-to-day problem solving, is so much more fun. Without a strategy, though, you can find yourself hacking through the jungle without even knowing where you are going. If you aren’t careful, you’ll end up in the middle of nowhere – perhaps near a rising creek without the proverbial paddle.
I’m not giving you advice. I’m talking about my planning for the coming year. If I want to run a half marathon in a few months with my wife, Amy, I’ll need a strategy and some tactics.
Strategic Goal : Run a half marathon
Tactics: Steps required to achieve the goal: Follow a running plan each day that will build up endurance without causing injury.
As a young Marine I read Sun Tzu “The Art of War” and some of those lessons still ring true about how you need both a good strategy and good tactics.
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
Sun Tzu
So in business and in life I have a few goals in mind for the coming year. If I don’t approach them with the right mix of strategy and tactics next years article will be titled 2018 – woulda coulda shoulda!
