At the beginning of any new year it is easy to set ourselves New Year's Resolutions that normally fizzle out by February. For the past couple of years I have approached my years in a different way and I thought I would share this with you in this episode.

There are applicable tips in this show for you and your family business and how to shape your vision and goals.

Remember to sign up to the newsletter to receive my 2022 Mission Statement

LINKS:

My Three Words from Chris Brogan - https://chrisbrogan.com/stories/community/3words2022/

Atomic Habits by James Clear - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/1847941834

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www.fambizpodcast.com/support

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this week's episode of the family business podcast.

. As I have explained in the preview show, if you've listened to that,

these are shorter form podcasts focused on a particular topic.

This week is goals and habits, and I'll get into those a little bit more.

Very short.

If you are new to the show or if you haven't done so already, please do

sign up to the newsletter, particularly given the January newsletter for 20,

22 is going to be following up on what is included in this episode.

So I'm going to be sharing with you my 2022 mission statement.

If that's not too.

Boulder title for what it is that I'm hoping to achieve in this year.

And in this episode, I wanted to share how I work my way down from an overall vision

into the goals I want to achieve in order to help me get to that vision and also

their habits and behaviors that I need to take on and demonstrate over the course

of the year in order to achieve those goals in order to achieve that vision.

And I put that all together in my mission statement for this year.

. So obviously it is a new year and this time of year is pretty synonymous

with new year's resolutions.

I try not to set or call them new year's resolutions because.

Mostly I miss out on those.

Last couple of years, I have changed the way in which I have set myself

targets and goals for each year.

And a big shift that I made which became a much more successful I'm

going to share with you what that is and share some resources that

I think would be useful for those.

If what I talk about today resonates, then there's some great resources out there to

help support what it is your looking at.

, in terms of where I start with my goals or aspirations for each year

I start by looking at what I want my lifestyle to look like, what I want

to be doing on an annual basis on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis and

understanding what a fulfilled and happy lifestyle looks like for me.

Now, I'm not a firm believer in.

The whole work-life balance mindset.

I think it's it's life.

And if you are doing something that you love to be doing, it doesn't necessarily

feel like, you know, that's the fun tax you pay for having a particular lifestyle.

So that's part of the reason why I do what I do because I love it, but

also because it allows me to create a lifestyle that will leave me.

Feeling fulfilled and given that we are only here once life, isn't a rehearsal.

I think that is an important aspect.

So starting off with that overall vision doesn't necessarily mean unrestricted to

12 months, but it does give me a bigger picture of what I want my life to look

like rather than the specific day-to-day.

I then move on to the three words that are going to guide me across the year.

And that is a method that was introduced to me by somebody called Chris Brogan.

If you don't follow Chris on social media, I suggest you do so.

He's a great value.

He's got a show called the backpacks.

He also pioneered something called my three words.

Now it's a process that he used himself and found very useful and

so shared it with his audience.

And in essence, those three words become the three words to guide you through.

The following year and by setting those three words and really thinking about

what those three words are, what they mean to you, it feels far more personal.

Particularly for me, in terms of what I'm looking to do for 2022, it feels

far more personal to have three words.

That mean something to me that I can align my goals to On the link in the

show notes, there's a full explanation of what Chris suggests in terms of how you

go about finding your own three words.

A couple of points to make from those firstly, it's not a phrase,

so it's not to become fitter for example, as your three words.

and Chris also suggests that they are actionable words

rather than non-actionable.

And the plan is you stick with them throughout the year.

So you revert back to them.

He says our daily basis to ensure that they become your north

star, they become what guides you through the, the 12 month period.

And in order for it to be something that is meaningful and something

that is valuable to you again, he suggests using plain words rather

than an obscure or out there words.

And as I say, there's a link in the show notes that signposts

that in far more detail.

And what I thought I'd do is share my three words for this year.

One of the rules that Chris sets is that you don't have to feel, you should explain

these to people, but I thought he might be useful anyway just to, to do that on this

episode, so my three words are impact.

Education and empowerment.

And in my 2022 mission statement, I'm going to be outlining what that

means to me in far more detail.

But in essence, I've looked at my lifestyle.

I have looked at what I want to achieve for myself, for my family,

for my friends, for those around me.

What type of person I want to be for those and for obviously the people that I work

with and I moved more onto how I'm going to achieve that in just a second, but by

focusing on those three words, for me, it brings an alignment to part of the

reason why I set up my own business was to be able to have an impact was to be

able to educate and to be able to empower.

So by aligning my goals to those words for this year, I should get

far closer to where I want all of those aspects of my life to be.

So that was my starting point for setting out my goals for the year was to focus on.

Firstly visualizing a lifestyle that I wanted for myself and my family and

what that looked and felt like to, to summarize those down into three words,

which as I say, were impact education and empowerment An important element of that

for me is that these are personal words.

So I want to have a positive impact on myself, on my family

and the families I work with.

I want to educate myself.

My family and the families that I work with, and I want to empower myself, my

family and the families that I work with.

So the words were universal across the sort of main aspects of my life

that I'm focusing on this year.

So it's my myself, my person.

Development, my personal growth as an individual.

And those three words really resonated for me for, for doing that.

So that was my starting point.

I then went about setting goals That are aligned to those words.

And I'm not going to share those exact goals with you.

Needless to say, there is the typical weight loss healthy lifestyle type goals

in there, but rather than just set those as a goal, what is really important

is to have a plan in place as to the behaviors and habits that I need to

create in order to achieve those goals.

Now, if we take this and try to apply it to a family business scenario,

rather than an individual scenario, the process that I follow broadly is setting

myself a vision and an overall vision for what it is that I want to achieve.

And then I'm looking at the words that are aligned to that overall vision that

are going to guide me through the next 12 months to ensure that by the end of it,

I've made progress towards that overall.

Beyond that I'm then setting out my goals and importantly, the actions and

behaviors or habits that I need to create in order to achieve those goals that

get me closer to that overall vision.

So when we apply that to family business, as an ownership team, if you have a

clear vision or as a family, you have a clear vision for what it is that you

want to achieve with your business.

The conversation around what words you want to use to guide you is akin to having

discussions about what values you want to have demonstrated within the business.

But linked to that also is the behaviors that you would expect

everybody within your business to take and everyone within your family.

Taken and live to that are aligned to a division and B the values within which

you want to align your business to.

And we're very often told that it's a family businesses

values that set it apart from.

Non-family counterparts.

Whilst I don't disagree with that statement, I actually think it's

our behaviors and the behaviors of those family businesses that

are what makes a difference.

So we could all have a value statement, sat on the wall that

says, you know, the typical honesty and integrity and doing the right

thing and all of that kind of stuff.

But it's actually our behaviors that dictate that.

So we have to do what we say we do rather than just say it.

When I'm talking to family businesses about their values.

I asked them to focus on what behaviors they expect of each other

at a family level, at a business level and throughout the organization.

What behaviors do they want demonstrated that aligned to their values as well

as what behaviors you want to see?

You can talk about what behaviors you don't want to see, but by having

that conversation, you can actually open the door to some more meaningful

conversations around values than just picking off a list of the usual suspects.

It's also an important conversation because it helps

manage everybody's expectations.

So, if you have discussed what you believe to be your values, if you have

discussed and agreed what behaviors you expect of each other and those

within the organization to align with those values, there's far fewer gray

areas around that type of thing than if you were to just set a value and

then expect everybody to interpret what that means through their own lens.

So I believe it's far more important to have discussions around behaviors than

it is necessarily just a focus on values.

And that aligns very much to the actions and habits that I need to take in

order to achieve the goals that I have.

So if I just set the goals at the beginning of the gear, didn't change

any of my behavior didn't change any of the habits and things that

I did on a daily basis, the chances are I would get to the end of that

year and nothing would have changed.

The other important element for my own personal perspective.

And, and part of my sort of self-awareness is the reason I'm having to set a

goal and let's use a weight loss goal.

As an example, is the habits and behaviors that I've been

demonstrating over the past 12 months.

And probably far before then have resulted in me being in a position where

I need to set myself a weight loss.

So the recognition that I am, where I am today because of the behaviors and

actions that I have taken historically, is an important recognition of also

what needs to happen going forward.

So again, if I try to apply that to a family business situation, if there's

a particular challenge or a particular scenario that you're facing within

your business, that's creating some tension or that is difficult to resolve.

Part of starting to address that, I guess is looking at it from the point

of view, as the behaviors that have been demonstrated, the habits that you

have in the way that you interact as a family with your business have created

the situation that you are now facing.

And so that is learned behavior.

That is something that you know, for years you may have been working in

the same way with your relatives for years, you may have been having this

similar relationship with a particular relative and in the same way that

habits can be very hard to change.

That behavior can be very hard to change and very hard to address as well.

And it doesn't put off the reason for doing it and it shouldn't be seen as

a huge barrier in terms of achieving what it is that you want to attend.

but if there isn't recognition that what we have done in the past has

got us to where we are today for good and for bad, then that can be

the starting point for how you want to approach things going forward.

And that brings me onto the second resource that I wanted to share

with you on top of the Chris Brogan.

He is also a book that I have read recently.

Again, I tend to read it, actually listen to it on on audible about this time each.

And it is atomic habits by James clear and essentially I'm paraphrasing hugely.

And I do recommend getting the book in order to, to get the sort of reasoning

and the psychology behind this far more.

But he breaks down in the book, how habits are created, how habits can be broken.

And he talks brilliantly about the four laws of behavior change.

And I'm just going to very briefly summarize these because

I'm having to take a lot of.

On, in order to create the habits or behaviors or actions that I

need to put in place to achieve my ambitions for this year.

And I thought, again, it might be useful to summarize those.

I'm not foregoing.

The fact that I highly recommend the book.

So the four laws of behavior change, look at ways in which we can create an

environment within which the behavior that we want to see is easier to achieve.

So the first law is to make it obvious I E set a time.

So in the context of my fitness goal, I need to set a time that says at

7:00 AM, on a Monday, I will go for.

So you make it obvious in a family business scenario that might be every

third, Tuesday, we will meet to discuss matters of a business nature away from

a family environment, as an example of creating something that is obvious

as to what the purpose of it is for

The second law of behavior change is to make it attractive.

So again, using a fitness context for me making it attractive, I will find a

series that I want to watch on Netflix.

And whilst on running on a treadmill, I will watch that series or I

will run in a particularly nice.

Area, if I'm doing it outside so that it aligns to that goal of making it

attractive from a family business perspective, making it attractive

could be that you create a culture within your business, within your

family, where your desired behavior is.

So you're supporting each other to create that culture where more dialogue happens

or where you separate family issues from business issues, whatever it is

that you're trying to achieve, make it attractive and create that culture where

that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

The third law of behavior change is to make it easy.

So you reduce friction, you make it far easier for, I don't know if you're

geographically dispersed, you make it easier by saying we'll have meetings

virtually rather than waiting for everybody to be in the same place.

For me and for my fitness goal, again.

Making it easy could be that I will aim to start off by just running a mile,

rather than looking to run a marathon.

The first time I go out for a run.

So making it easy is a good way to create a good habit because it,

then the resistance is not there.

It's far more easy to achieve.

The fourth law of behavior change is to make it satisfying.

So again, fitness goals.

It might be that I'm allowed a cheat day every month.

If I achieve all of my goals and habits of running three times a week, therefore

I'm getting some reward from that.

Aside from the progressive impact of making changes.

I think that's another important element actually, when it comes to

habits is it, they compound over time.

So, if you start off with something that might be a bit clunky in terms of

another way of communicating with each other or the way you're talking about

a particular topic, be that succession or vision, or the behaviors you want.

If you create the habit of talking about those over time, the effects compound.

So it becomes easier.

It becomes more of a normal thing to be doing rather than it feeling a bit.

And this goes back to the point I made earlier in the show

about we become what we do.

If, if we accept that we become what we do then striving to do better things means

that we will inherently become better.

And I know it's very easily said personally from my own

experience is not easily done.

Hence why I need to set myself a weight loss goal this year.

But the idea is that I become what I do.

Therefore, if I run more, I will become fitter.

I will become healthier.

And that aligns with what I'm trying to do from a vision perspective, right.

At the very top level.

So, as I say, I will be writing this out as a mission statement

for 2022 and sharing that with newsletter subscribers, part of

that is to hold myself accountable.

So if.

Receive that, and you want to share your own goals, your own aspirations for

the year with me, then that'd be great.

And we can create some form of accountability towards doing that.

If you hear me coming on future podcast, And or watching any of my videos and you

see my face taking up more of the screen that than it did at the beginning of the

year, then, you know, I've probably failed on, on my ambitions, but it'd be great to

pick me up on that if you, if you want to.

But also just to again, share what it is I'm looking to achieve and

why, and creating that element of accountability I'll report back.

This time next year as to how I've done against those goals

and against those aspirations.

But as I say, if you are looking at ways in which to set your vision,

your goals Your values utilizing something like this may help.

And if you want to have a conversation with me about it in more detail and

perhaps dig into some of those in a bit more detail, I'd be very happy to do that.

You can get in touch via the fam biz podcast.com website or I'm on

social media, Twitter, or LinkedIn, if you want to find me on there,

but I hope that's been useful.

Slightly different tack from me for this show.

Much more about me which I'm not entirely comfortable with, but I

think some of the process that I've followed is very much applicable to what

you're doing with the family business.

And so I hope it's been useful.

And next week's episode, we are looking at the concept of ownership

and how having an ownership philosophy might be very useful until then take