You can’t make progress in your business if you’re not measuring it! Here’s why this concept is so important for entrepreneurs.

One of the most common mistakes business owners make is failing to measure their progress or choosing to measure their progress against ideals and vague generalisations. Almost everyone does it, but it’s particularly harmful for business owners because it prevents them from truly understanding and recognising their own success and achievements—both in life and business.

In many cases, they are making significant progress towards their goals, but it doesn’t feel like they are because they have no real way of measuring it. To truly get the feeling of progress, measurements need to be based on concrete facts. Vague and general goals like “success” or “wealth” or being more like someone you admire can’t lead you to the feeling of progress.

This is the basis behind one of our core concepts, The Gap And The Gain. This concept simply states that there are two ways of measuring progress in both business and life. Depending on which method you choose, you’ll either be in “The Gap,” where you’re never satisfied with your progress, or “The Gain,” where you feel satisfied, fulfilled, and happy with your progress.

Are you in The Gap or The Gain?

Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs are in The Gap, whether they realize it or not.

Even though they’re clearly successful, they are unhappy and feel as if they haven’t accomplished their goals. They’re not able to see the success they’ve achieved, even if everyone else can. And it’s because they are measuring themselves in terms of generalities like “wealthy” or against the number-one person in their industry.

They’re in The Gap

By simply focusing on specific and measurable progress, these same people can quickly change their mindset and become aware of the real success they’ve achieved. When they do this, they gain a sense of feeling grounded, centred, and that there are fewer moving parts in their life that overwhelm them. Most importantly, they feel as if they’re truly successful. (Which they are!)

They’re now in The Gain!

Has their rate of progress changed? Not necessarily. The main difference is the way they’re measuring. Only by making specific measurements will you know that progress has been made. Simply put, there’s no progress without measurement.

How to measure (the right way)

I’ve found that there are two primary ways to measure your success: One will put you in The Gap, while the other will put you in The Gain.

The first is measuring forward. This is when you have a picture of your ideal self in the future, and you strive to achieve it. You’re always trying to progress forward, with the end goal of reaching that ideal state.

But there’s a problem with this way of thinking. When you measure forward, you’ll always be disappointed when you check your progress. Even if you’ve made significant progress towards your goal, you’ll never feel truly successful because you and your business are not the ideal versions you’ve always pictured.

Even if you’ve hit your goal and achieved real success in your life or business, you’ll still feel the same as you did when you started because that ideal will always be unattainable. You become more critical of yourself, you lose confidence, you become disappointed, and you feel as if there’s no way you’ll ever achieve what you desire.

When you think this way, you’ll always be in The Gap. So, what’s the alternative?

The alternative is measuring backwards. With this method, you simply look back at where you started and measure how far you’ve come in your business or life. Even if you haven’t achieved your goal, you’ll still be a lot further ahead than when you started. You’ve still made progress!

When you measure backwards, you increase your confidence, energy, and satisfaction. You recognise the new capabilities you’ve developed and the success you’ve already achieved.

Many have equated this simple mindset shift to “flipping a switch in your brain,” as it turns success into something you’re constantly achieving rather than something that’s always just out of reach.

Why this matters for entrepreneurs

So, why does this matter?

Because moving forward feels good. Time is always moving forward, and the best feeling we can have is to be moving forward along with it.

The feeling that we’re making progress is powerful and positive, but it only comes from knowing you’ve moved forward, and the only way to know that is through specific measurements. You might have made progress towards your goals, but you’re not going to feel good about it unless you measure how far you’ve come. You won’t even know you’ve made progress at all unless you measure your progress properly.

From a material standpoint, life has vastly improved over the past 50 years, but if you don’t measure your own personal progress, any type of measurable improvement in society will be meaningless to you. You can’t appreciate any other progress going on around you if you’re not measuring, and therefore conscious of, your own.

On the flip side, falling behind feels bad. There’s no in-between feeling when it comes to personal progress; if you don’t feel like you’re moving ahead, you feel that things are moving on without you, passing you by.

If you’re not feeling good about what you’re doing, your mind might go to a place where you start comparing yourself to other people you think are doing better. But comparing yourself against others just causes unhappiness. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

The purpose of measurement is to have right thinking around the results you’ve achieved. For this reason, all of my measurements are based on things to do with me personally or with my company, where I’ve had a major influence in bringing about an improvement, or where we can learn something specific from why we didn’t hit certain goals.

In addition, measuring your own personal progress keeps you out of comparison with others.

We all know the phrase, “Mind your own business.” Well, my new motto is, “Measure your own business.” When you make sure all of your measurements are against yourself, you’ll move towards your goal of increased progress, learning, and growth. Good things don’t come from measuring yourself against anyone else.

Take action today

So, how can you transition from The Gap to The Gain? We use a number of different tools and exercises to help our entrepreneurs get out of The Gap—here’s one you can use right now to start shifting your thinking.

Whatever goal you’re striving for in your business or personal life, go back and identify three experiences you’ve had where you’ve already achieved something similar. Identify the areas where you’ve already made progress.

This will help you begin to appreciate your past experiences and all the progress you’ve made up to this point. You’re only capable of what you’re doing now because of your past experiences—and that will turn into further progress in the future, just as it has in the past.

It’s simple: Start with the past, and you’ll be happy.

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This is the best method for making consistent progress in your business

When you start out as a business owner, there’s no set path to follow. You need to create your own progress, and if you want that progress to be significant, you’ll need to set some goals for yourself.

But most entrepreneurs—in fact, most people in general—struggle with setting goals and achieving them. Whether it’s related to the success of your business, your health, or your personal life, setting and achieving goals is a difficult process that leaves many people feeling discouraged and frustrated.

Over my 40 years of coaching business owners, I’ve been able to develop my own tools and frameworks for setting goals, and I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. I’d like to share some tips that I’ve found to be effective. These may seem simple in nature, but they’re meant to shift your thinking around goal setting and how it applies to your business and personal life. Often, a shift in mindset is all it takes to achieve goals that would otherwise seem out of reach.

A goal is a vision

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make when setting goals is that they focus only on the numerical component. Setting measurable goals is important, of course—it’s something I recommend all entrepreneurs do—but it’s just one component of the goal-setting process. A goal should be more than just a number.

When I set a goal for myself, I look at it as a chance to create a bigger and better version of myself. I look at it as a vision of myself in the future, being able to operate with bigger and better capabilities. Sure, there may be a number involved to help me get there, but the goal is more than just the numerical component.

This way of thinking makes the goal exciting. It’s no longer just a mountain of numbers to climb; it’s a new version of yourself that you can visualise. In the future, you’re going to be a new business owner operating in a new way, and the goal is just meant to get you there.

This is perhaps my biggest goal-setting tip for entrepreneurs. While numbers are a vital component of the process, they’re not the be-all and end-all. Focus on creating a vision for yourself over the next year.

What new capability do you want to have? This could be anything: more revenue, a new piece of knowledge, a new business opportunity … Whatever it is, visualise it and how you’ll feel when you achieve it.

100 books in 100 quarters

When I talk to entrepreneurs about goals, I often bring up one of the most lofty goals I’ve set for myself over the years. When I was 70 years old, I set a goal to write 100 books in 100 quarters.

When I set this goal, I made it very public. I told my team, my clients, and everyone in my network that I was going to put out 100 books over 25 years. And within just a few weeks, I was already thinking, “What did I get myself into?”

This goal seemed unattainable. I had no idea what I was doing or how I would manage it.

Sound familiar? I’m sure most entrepreneurs reading this can relate to this situation and how I was feeling.

But I took a step back and remembered my own advice. What did I really want to accomplish here? What was my vision for the future? When I broke it down, I discovered that I was really looking for two things: I wanted to present a new book to our entrepreneurs every quarter, and I never wanted to run out of new ideas or concepts for Strategic Coach.

From there, everything started to fall into place. The easiest way to start was to take the main idea I was currently focused on for our workshops and turn that into a book with help from my team. Then, it just became a matter of coming up with one new idea each quarter and using teamwork to turn it into a book.

For me, this new vision was exciting, simple, and attainable. Creating a new book is a daunting endeavour. But coming up with new ideas to help entrepreneurs? That’s what I do best!

3 goal-setting tips for entrepreneurs in 2021

I hope that example shows you that even your most lofty goals are attainable if you shift your thinking. And with that in mind, here are three simple goal-setting tips that you can implement for the year ahead.

1. Start by visualising yourself at the end of 2021. What’s going to be true about you as a business owner entrepreneur at the end of this year? What will be true about your business? Your personal life?

These questions will help you clarify what you ultimately want to achieve in 2021 and who you want to be. It all goes back to that first piece of advice—creating a vision, not a goal.

2. Clarify your goals! Entrepreneurs often set goals without actually thinking through all the components. One of our most popular tools at Strategic Coach is called The Impact Filter, and it’s built to provide clarity on any number of things, including goals. Regardless of whether you use the tool or not, the idea is simple.

For every goal, you should clarify:

• What the goal is
• Why it’s important
• What difference it’s going to make
• What the ideal outcome is
• The best and worst results
• The success criteria

This will give you some much-needed clarity on your goals. If you’ve never taken the time to do something like this before, you’ll be amazed at how it improves your entire goal-setting process. I can’t recommend it enough.

3. Instead of asking how to achieve your goals, start asking who will help you get there. Business owners often feel overwhelmed by their goals because they don’t know how they’ll achieve them. If you shift your thinking to focus on who instead of how, your capabilities become infinite and everything becomes easier.

When I first started on my goal of writing 100 books in 100 quarters, I had no idea how I was going to get all the work done. The primary reason I’ve been able to be successful with this goal is because I focused on finding the “Whos” for my “Hows.”

When you approach goals with this mindset, it makes them less daunting and more enjoyable. You don’t have to worry about all the things you don’t know how to do, because someone else will do them for you, freeing you up to focus exclusively on what you do best. Whether it’s a partnership, new hire, or freelancer, there is someone out there who can help you achieve your goals—and they’ll be happy to do so. You just need to find them!

These tips are simple, but I guarantee that any entrepreneur who follows them will be able to make 2021 their best year yet.

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How to set and achieve your goals as an entrepreneur in 2021