Are your personal goals aligned with your professional ones?

Our personal and professional lives are intertwined – and best if aligned. From a personal perspective, we make decisions around Relationships, Achievements, Rituals, and Wealth, which mirrors the four key decisions for your company: People, Strategy, Execution and Cash. Having a strong and fulfilled personal life provides an important foundation for sustaining your efforts in your company.

Verne Harnish, Founder & CEO of Gazelles Inc. and author of the books Scaling Up and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, provides the framework and a tool in Scaling Up called the One Page Personal Plan  to help us outline how to get the proper alignment.

Relationships

In the end, what matters most in life is the depth of your relationships with friends and family, and the sheer number of people you’ve helped along the way. List the key groups of people with whom you want a lasting relationship. In business you have a tremendous opportunity to help your employees and customers – so consider adding them categorically to the list.

Achievements

Many CEO’s find that even after reaching critical milestones for growing their company, they still feel they haven’t made a real difference in the world. Think about the major ways you’d like to make an impact through your work beyond reaching monetary goals. In your personal life, you’ll want to think about how you can make a real difference to the key people in your life. For instance, you might aim to have a blissful marriage instead of just staying married, as many people do.

Rituals

Establishing regular routines in your life will help you achieve your larger goals. You know how to do this in your professional life. Are the rituals in your personal life just as honed? Examples of rituals might include planning a weekly date night with your spouse or partner and booking some alone time with each child once a week. You might also establish rituals with people whose presence in your life supports your bigger goals.

Wealth

Rather than viewing financial wealth as an end in itself (as a wise guy once told Verne, “all assets become liabilities”), see it as a resource for supporting the rest of your personal plan. Besides determining how much money you want to set aside for retirement, set goals for the amount of money you want to donate over the next several years to causes and communities that matter to you. Overall, focus on how your wealth will flow through you in the service of others, rather than hoarding it. This seems to attract more wealth – the natural law of reciprocity.

If you are interested in growing in one or more of these areas, let me know. We can work together to establish personal goals to ensure you’re building a strong foundation professionally.