It’s time to address the elephant in the room: this year, we missed 100% of the business goals we set. Yes, you read that right. A perfect score of missed goals for 2024. But here’s the thing—we’re not mad about it.
Let’s break this down and talk about why missing big goals might actually be the best thing for your business.
The Power of Setting Big Goals
Do you set big goals for your business each year? If you’re anything like us, you probably kick off every January with a fresh list of goals on your whiteboard or planner. Maybe you’ve even started setting goals for 2025 already (note to self: add this to our to-do list).
Goals are essential. They’re the stakes in the ground that give our efforts direction and purpose. It’s biblical even – Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
But here’s the thing: if you’re consistently hitting all your goals, you might not be dreaming big enough. Let’s explain.
Why Missing Big Goals Is a Good Thing
The purpose of a goal isn’t to check off an easy list of achievements. It’s to stretch you, challenge you, and push you toward growth. If your goals are so easily attainable that you can tick them off without breaking a sweat, you’re not growing yourself, you’re limiting yourself!
Instead, your goals should feel so ambitious that they seem almost impossible. They should force you to ask yourself, “Who do I need to become to accomplish this?”
It’s often said that what got you here won’t get you there. To reach new heights, you need to grow, adapt, and become someone different. And that’s why we aren’t wallowing in disappointment over missing our business goals for 2024—because we grew in the process.
The Growth Found in the Process
Here’s a look at the lofty goals we set for this year:
- $500,000 in photography revenue (we fell well short)
- Building a team of 10 photographers (our team actually shrank)
- Serving 100 different brands (we missed this by a laughable margin)
And yet, in the pursuit of these goals, we grew. This year taught us so many lessons in business that we’ll take with us forever.
One of our mentors recently told us, “When you have an underwhelming year in business, that’s when you often experience the most personal growth.” That couldn’t be more true for us this year.
While we missed all of our business goals, we hit 50% of our personal goals for 2024:
- Hosting a vacation for our whole family in 30A
- Going to the Summer Worship Nights concert with our kids
- Checking different fish off of our fishing bucket list
These personal wins brought us so much more than we could try to monetize.
What About Your Goals?
So, where do you stand with your 2024 goals? Did you hit them, miss them, or maybe land somewhere in between? More importantly, how have you grown in the process?
We encourage you to set goals for 2025 that push you to grow—not just as a business owner, but as a person. And remember, growth isn’t always measured by what’s checked off on a list. Sometimes, the best rewards come from the journey itself.
Drop a comment or send us a message to share your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you and celebrate your growth, no matter what your goals looked like this year.
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