In business, if you don’t know where you’ve been or where you’re going how do you know when you’ve arrived? The simple answer is that you don’t and need a well-established road map in getting there. I have seen many people struggle when buying a business opportunity or small franchise. They rely too much on the parent company for direction and not enough on guiding themselves in their new business journey.

Establishing your goals for 2010 and beyond is a critical step in achieving success. Organizing your thoughts and dreams, and then fulfilling your needs to accomplish these goals are all necessary in achieving any kind of success. This process is easier than you might have thought. So get started today and 2010 can be your best year yet.

Here is my advice on how to organize your business related goals. The first goal you should write down is one that can’t be achieved that easily. In fact, if you set out with your first few goals that you can achieve quickly you’re missing the point of this exercise. The first goal(s) should be challenging and something you’ll strive on to accomplish throughout the entire year.

You might be asking yourself why I’m suggesting you set up your goals that will take you an entire year or more to complete. The answer is simple. You need to establish goals that make you realize just how important this business is to you and how much you’ll need to work to obtain success. True success isn’t measured in days or weeks. It is measured in months and in many cases, years of hard work. Also, establishing long-term goals keep you from getting sidetracked or frustrated by short-term thinking and setbacks.

Next, establish where you have been and where you need to go in the first part of the year. These goals should be mid-range and should take you the first three quarters of the year to accomplish.

Lastly, establish all of your short-term goals that you’d like to achieve in Q1 of 2010. This list could be very short or long depending on you. The longer and more detailed the better the goals. For example, you can even include how to improve and organize your home-based business office or your hours of operation.

Finally, go back to your entire list of goals and describe how you plan to achieve each one of them by writing it down. In terms of your long-term goals, you should use broad strokes and think in basic terms. Your mid-range goals should have slightly more detail and your short-term goals need very specific bullet points in establishing what you need done and when. This exercise will aid you in becoming better organized to start achieving your success in 2010!

Carpe Diem