How many things are you really trying to achieve this year?

Once the year gets going, I often ask owners a very simple question:

How many things are you actually trying to achieve in the business this year?

Not just the big headline goals - I want to hear about the FULL list.

New products and services.

New systems.

Sales targets.

Process improvements and automation.

Cost controls.

Team initiatives.

Then I ask a second question:

How many objectives does each member of your team have sitting on their list right now?

When you add it all up, many businesses are trying to move far too many things forward at the same time.

On the surface, that can feel positive. Busy can feel like progress and often we equate business to striving and success.

Unfortunately the real cost of having too many objectives can show up quickly:

Attention gets spread thin.

Important work competes with “nice to have” work.

People jump between priorities instead of pushing any of them far enough to make a real difference.

Over time, it can start to feel like a tick-the-box exercise - where there is plenty of activity, but not always much impact on what actually matters for the business.

That’s frustrating for owners. And it’s demotivating for teams, who are working hard but don’t always see clear progress on the things that really count.

This is why I often suggest a much tougher exercise:

If you were forced to pick only three objectives that would make the biggest difference to the business this year, what would they be?

Not ten. Not a long list with priorities beside it. Just three.

Those three that, if they were successfully implemented, would change the shape of the business.

Once those three are clear, the next question is:

What does your team actually need to be doing, day to day, to support those priorities?

Not everything.

Not business as usual plus more.

But the specific activities that genuinely move those three things forward.

This is where focus stops being a nice concept and starts showing up in how time, people, and money are actually used.

The risk I see time after time is when everything is treated as important, nothing really gets the attention it needs to succeed.

The irony is that taking a narrower, more deliberate approach often delivers results faster, not slower.

It’s clearer for your team. Easier to see whether you’re making progress.

And far more motivating than chasing a long list of competing targets.

And if you achieve those three before the end of the year?

You can always choose the next ones.

Business rarely grows in neat 12-month plans. It grows in cycles of focused effort - where a small number of things are pushed properly, then reassessed, then pushed again.

So the question to ask yourself next is:

What are the three objectives that really matter most for my business this year?