Understanding Short Term vs Long Term Goals

Setting goals is an important part of running a business and managing your personal life. One of the questions that often pops up is how to set and manage short term vs long term goals. This can be especially challenging for small business owners; the day-to-day of running a business can often feel overwhelming and leave no space for thinking much into the future. Likewise, some people can get so caught up in their grand dreams of the distant future that they never take the necessary steps to get there or properly manage the business as it is now. Not to mention, striking a decent work-life balance is a huge challenge for most entrepreneurs, and if you can’t manage your personal goals, both short and long term, that will often bleed into your ability to manage your business over time as the stress and overwhelm builds and builds. Luckily setting and achieving goals doesn’t have to be a metaphorical Mount Everest; with the right tools in hand you can learn to set personal, financial, professional, and specific goals for the near future and the distant future, and you can plan and act accordingly to achieve them.

The Difference Between Short Term and Long Term Goals

First, it’s good to know the difference between short and long term goals. Short term goals include anything that can be achieved in the “short term”, that is, within a year or less. Which means what may be a “big goal” for you might still be a short term goal if it can be achieved relatively quickly. 

This is also a good reminder that even though a lot can happen in a year, you’re playing the long game when it comes to your business. If you’re only planning for a year in advance, you’re avoiding half of the goals you could be mapping out. Short term goals are really useful to plan out specific, measurable action steps as they give you a sense of direction by serving as stepping stones towards your long term goals. They also help you quickly and easily manage immediate crises within your current situation as you can run decisions through the filter of your goals to see if the decision will support or hinder movement in the direction you want to go. Examples of short term goals would be increasing sales by 15% by the end of Q2 or decreasing production time for a product by 10% within 8 months. 

Long term goals cover pretty much anything that takes over a year to accomplish, though often you’ll see businesses talk in terms of 3 years, 5 years, and sometimes 10 years. Your goal might sound small, but if it’s something that takes multiple years, it’s still a long term goal! If short term goals are your planned stops along a road trip, long term goals are the final destination. You may not know exactly where you’re going to park when you get there, but you know what town you’re headed to and the general direction to travel. These are particularly important for visionary CEOs – you have big dreams for your business, values you want to live out, and great ideas you hope to share. These big-picture sort of goals are the blood and breath of your business; without them you may have never thought to start it in the first place. Examples of long term goals would be aiming to open a new location within the next four years or hoping to triple your ROI within three years.

And, just like in business, short and long term goals are important in your personal life. Your business will grow with you, and, more importantly, you exist as a complete person outside of your business. It’s a healthy and valuable use of your time to dedicate some energy to mapping out your personal goals for the near and distant future in the way you do for your business, both for your improvement as an entrepreneur and an individual.

The Interplay Between Short Term and Long Term Goals

Both short and long term goals can be financial goals, operational goals, personal goals, or professional goals. They can be “big” or “small”, an ultimate goal or an intermediate goal. Really any of the types of goals, honestly. The difference is more in how the time frame changes their practical application and impact. For example, if you want to learn to use Clickup, it’s not really reasonable to say you need 2 years to do so; this is a natural short term goal. Likewise, if your goal is to build a successful business, there’s no way you can confidently say you’ve achieved that in one year; this is a natural long term goal. 

Often your short term goals will act as check points, or mile markers, on your way to achieving a long term goal. As you drive towards a 50% increase in sales over 3 years, you first have to hit a 5% increase in Q1 of year 1, and so on. Otherwise your long term goals would never actually be reached. This enables your goals by making them increasingly more possible as you work towards them. Afterall, it becomes way less daunting to try to reach, say, $1 million in annual revenue if you’ve first successfully reached $400,000 in annual revenue, then $600,000 in annual revenue, and so on. 

Setting and Achieving Short Term vs Long Term Goals

There are a few key differences between setting and achieving short term goals and long term goals, but the biggest thing to know is that the timeframe you set for yourself and the goal itself has to be reasonably attainable. If it isn’t, either adjust the deadline or reconsider your overall goal and structure of it. As you go about this process, make sure to remember these practical tips.

Strategies for Setting Goals

First, set SMART goals. 

SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

As you plan, check your goals against the SMART criteria and make adjustments as needed. If you create a vague goal, that goal is essentially useless to you. It won’t provide a clear picture of where you’re trying to go, nor of what you want to accomplish (or how to know if you even succeeded). The same applies if that goal is not achievable or relevant to the larger vision of your business. 

• What are you trying to do? 
• Why do you wish to do it? 
• How will it happen? 

And if your goals are not measurable and time-bound, how will you know when you’ve accomplished them, or when you should start for that matter? This standard helps keep you from wasting your time and energy on irrelevant and unclear efforts. 

Another strategy when setting goals: 

When trying to know what goals to set, it can be useful to start with a SWOT analysis of your business. Look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to your business. Then use that information, combined with the hopes, dreams, and desires you already have for your business, to orient yourself and your business in the right direction. Sort of like using a compass to make a trail! 

Be as honest as you can with yourself about your capacity and your team’s capacity to be productive, and be willing to adjust the plan if things aren’t working or are moving slower than expected.

Steps to Achieve Your Goals

When it comes to actually achieving your goals, writing out all the steps to get there and how long each step should take can be incredibly useful. This lets you make an action plan and set a timeline to use as your map during the journey ahead. Start with everything you need (resources, continuing education, your team) to accomplish the goal, then begin creating your timeline. Make sure to leave space to handle life and unexpected things that may come up as immediate needs in the year(s) to come and to pace things to avoid burnout. 

Staying motivated over a long period of time can be especially challenging, in particular if you can’t easily see much progress. Visual devices to show how far you have come can be useful for this. It’s also helpful to remind yourself why you set this goal in the first place. Don’t lose traction on the things that are important to you and your business.

Challenges in Balancing Short Term and Long Term Goals

Balancing short and long term goals can be tricky. Sometimes they’re leading you in the same direction, but when you have multiple long term goals, that equates to multiple lines of short term goals. With all of these moving parts it can be easy to feel overwhelmed, or lose focus, or forget why it’s so important to prioritize things without a fast reward. To avoid this, prioritize the items on your list ahead of time, including giving a reason as to why each item is important. This helps you to know what your business needs most and why when you can’t see the results in the moment. It’s also good to dedicate time each month specifically focused on long term goals, so you can ensure they’re getting the proper amount of attention in the midst of busy seasons.

Final Thoughts

Always plan for both the long term and the short term when it comes to your business and your life. What you do in the short-term will feed into your distant future and lead you step by step to where you hope to be. 

Set SMART goals that make sense for the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to your business, as well as the values and mission of your business, and thoughtfully and intentionally plan how you’ll get from point A to point B. Goals are important, so don’t lose steam when things get delayed or move slower than expected – if it was important enough to hope for when you wrote the list, then it’s probably an important enough objective to work towards even when it’s challenging. 

Upwell Strategies has a variety of resources for entrepreneurs looking to improve their goal setting and planning skills, from our business audit to the digital products in the Visionary Vault. Check both out today to start your journey with us.