Sharpening the Sword is a regular column by retailer John Riley, who owns Grasshopper's Comics, a 1300-square foot comic and game store in Williston Park, New York.  This week, Riley talks about setting goals:

If you've ever done any scuba diving training then you've probably heard one of diving's most famous sayings.  It's such a simple but profound idea that I've never forgotten it, even though I haven't been able to dive in over a decade: 'Plan the Dive, Dive the Plan.'  For divers, especially those engaged in deep wreck diving, this is a mantra that they rely on to save their lives.  Prior to entering a wreck the divers plan their descent, their route within the wreck, their time-table, their objectives, and their planned exit.  Here on Long Island we have a few very dangerous wrecks and we tend to lose a few divers each season, all of whom invariably deviated from their plan.

Before we explore the obvious implications this has for business planning, I'd like to briefly recount a story by Dr. Stephen Covey, author of the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.  In his story he tells of a man who was driven to climb the ladder of success.  He was very motivated and focused; he had a positive mental attitude and great self talk.  He was great at delegation, sought synergy within his business, and always looked for win-win solutions.  He used all the business catchwords and over the course of his career he climbed right to the top of that ladder.  And having risen to the top he stopped to look around and survey his surroundings and realized that all this time he had put the ladder up against the wrong wall.

As you begin the business planning process it's important to focus on one key issue first: What do you want?  I know that sounds simple, but it's really not because all too often we generalize our goals.  For example your goal for 2006 might be to 'be more successful' or to 'make more money', but that's not narrowing it down nearly enough.  For example your goal would never be to 'drive across the country', but rather to 'drive to San Diego.'  If you don't know exactly where you want to go, how will you know if you got there?

All too often we go off with little more than this type of general idea in our heads, 'I need to make more money next year.'  And before we know it we're somewhere in our business that we never planned for.  Let this happen year after year and soon you've got that Talking Heads line, 'Well, how did I get here?' echoing in your head.

So in these last weeks of 2005, while deep in the holiday rush (hopefully!) try to take some time and imagine where you'd like to be next year.  To give you an idea, my goals for 2006 include growing the business another 10%, primarily by focusing on in-store gaming events and community building, and making my store much more attractive to the new customer.  However, these are actually intermediary goals and strategies to allow me to reach my true goal, which is to work less and spend more time with my family and pursuing other interests.

You see over the past year I've thought long and hard about what wall I wanted to put my ladder against.  After thirteen years of being wrapped up in climbing that ladder sometimes you need to really step back and take a long hard look at where you're going.  For me, I realized that my main desire is to have more freedom, more time for my family, and more time to pursue interests other than working.   If my interest was purely to make money I know I'd be much better off working in another industry. This is something I knew thirteen years ago, but forgot along the way as we struggled to build our store to what it is today.  I know I'll work very hard in 2006, hopefully focusing almost entirely on the things that will continue to build the store while enabling me and my manager to have more free time.  I've chosen what wall I want to put my ladder against.